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The Bench & Bar

OF

Orange County

BY

WILLIAM VANAMEE NOV 24 Wi

LAW LUMI

REPRINTED FROM THE

HISTORY OF ORANGE CO., N. Y.

EDITED BY

RUSSEL HEADLEY

THE BERKUI-BY PRESS. NEW YORK

19 8

Cornell University
Library

3J..

The original of tiiis book is in
tine Cornell University Library.

There are no known copyright restrictions in
the United States on the use of the text.

http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924022817724

The Bench & Bar

OF

Orange County

BY

WILLIAM VANAMEE

REPRINTED FROM THE

HISTORY OF ORANGE CO., N. Y.

EDITED BY

RUSSEL HEADLEY

THE BERKEI.EY PRESS, NEW YORK
19 8

476;?3

THE BENCH AND BAR. 466

CHAPTER XXXn.

THE BENCH AND BAR.

By William Vanamee.

AT the unveiling in Goshen, September 5th, 1907, of the monument in
memory of the gallant soldiers of the 124th Regiment, erected by
that modern exemplar of medieval knighthood, that truest of
men, of gentlemen and of heroes, Thomas W. Bradley, it was mentioned
by one of the speakers that just forty-five years before, upon that very
spot, as the regiment was about to start for the front, the stand of colors
destined to be carried by it through many a battle, was presented to it in
behalf of the Daughters of Orange by Charles H. Winfield.

His noble, inspiring speech upon that occasion was fitly responded to in
behalf of the regiment by David F. Gedney, then Mr. Winfield's only
rival at the Goshen bar and his acknowledged equal. The highest praise
that can be bestowed upon either is that each feared for the success of
his cause when opposed by the other. Indeed they were nearly always
opposed, for what timid, anxious client, learning that his adversary had
engaged the services of one, ever failed to suggest to his local attorney
the importance of averting prospective defeat by the employment of the
other. This remark of course applies chiefly to litigations arising in the
Western end of the county, in which the trials were usually held at
Goshen, for in Newburgh, Stephen W. Fullerton, who was admitted to
the bar in 1844, just one year before Mr. Gedney was admitted and two
years before Mr. Winfield, had from the first successfully challenged their
supremacy in the county at large. Well might he do so, for while he was
not the equal of Winfield in magnetism and force or of Gedney in scholar-
ship and style, yet he excelled them both in acuteness, in industry and
in mastery of the rules of evidence. This, then, was the great triumvirate
that forty years ago reigned supreme throughout the county of Orange
in the affection of their associates, in the admiration of juries and in the
plaudits of the multitude — Winfield, Gedney, Fullerton. All three pos-
sessed genius of an uncommon order and no court, however insensible
to the graces of oratory, could wholly restrain its flights or direct its

467 THE COUNTY OF ORANGE.

course. When the vexatious details of the testimony were over — for im
those days the testimony was regarded by the pubHc as a tedious formality
preparatory to the great event of the trial, the summing up — and when it
was understood that the addresses to the jury were to begin, the court-
room was quickly filled by people from all parts of the county, eager for
the intellectual treat that was sure to follow. Winfield was wont to begin
hi's closing argument somewhat slowly and even laboriously. This was
due partly to the habit of his mind, which required the stimulus of exer-
cise to quicken it to its highest exertions, but partly also to rhetorical de-
sign, by which he sought to make his subsequent outbursts of impassioned
eloquence seem wholly unstudied, spontaneous and irrepressible. Indeed,,
they usually were. As the thought of his client's wrongs surged in upon
him, as he dwelt upon his client's right to protection or relief, or contem-
plated the disaster involved in defeat, his words could scarcely keep pace
with the torrent of impetuous, sincere and deep emotion on which they"
were upborne. He always struck the human note which the case pre-
sented. To him a trial did not involve a mere application of legal prin-
ciples to an ascertained state of facts, but to him every case, however dry,
barren or abstract, was a human drama. He saw, with the eye of imagina-
tion and the insight of genius, those forces of hate and revenge, of greed
and falsehood, of cunning and cruelty, of devotion and affection, of honor
and truth, which in one form or another, surcharge every trial, and pro-
ject their palpitating figures upon the most intensely vital, vibrant stage
for which the scenes were ever set: — the conscious court-room, the austere
judge, the impassioned advocates, the enthralled spectators; human-
life or liberty, human happiness or despair, human rights or relations,
hanging in the balance upon a jury's nod. All this Winfield saw. In
every trial the panorama of human life unfolded itself to his inspired
vision. He took the broken, confused fragments of human testimony
and, subjecting them to the kaleidoscope of his own fervent, symmetrizing,
mirroring imagination, they were transformed into pictures of beauty or
shapes of evil, as he willed.

It can easily be imagined that his power over juries was well nigh irre-
sistible. If David F. Gedney, who was so often pitted against him, had
sought to counteract his influence by the exercise of similar gifts, he^
might well have despaired of success. But happily for himself and for
the delight of juries and the bar, no advocates were ever more unlike each

THE BENCH AND BAR. 4^8

other in method of argument, in point of attack, in form of expression,
in appeal to the sentiments, than Winfield and Gedney. Winfield filled the
eye ; Gedney charmed the ear. Winfield visited upon wrong or duplicity
the bludgeon blows of invective, Gedney pierced it with the envenomed
shaft of sarcasm. Winfield sought to break the armor of his adversary
with the broad axe of denunciation. Gedney penetrated it with the slender
arrow of wit and the fatal spear of ridicule. To Winfield language was
a necessary vehicle of thought, a familiar medium of expression. To Ged-
ney language was a divine instrument, over the responsive chords of
which his master touch swept with unerring taste and classic grace,
evoking notes of exquisite harmony and images of surpassing beauty.
The words that flowed unbidden from his enchrismed lips were music
indeed. His sentences, chaste and polished as though chiselled in the very
laboratory of thought, were but the unconscious reflection of a mind
steeped in the literature of every age and tongue. Even Winfield often
found to his dismay that those weapons of solid argument which would
have defied all the onslaughts of the gladiator, were powerless before
the arts of the magician. Not indeed that Gedney elevated style above
matter or sacrified strength to beauty. But in him style and matter were
so delicately balanced, beauty and strength so discreetly blended, that each
borrowed from the other and none was poorer for the exchange.

The personal characteristics of the two men were also different. Win-
field loved the approbation and applause of his fellows and aspired to poli-
tical honors. Gedney looked out upon the world with philosophic calm,
undisturbed by its clamors and untempted by its baubles. The only
offices which he held were strictly in the line of his profession — district
attorney and county judge — while Winfield acquired a conspicuous po-
sition in Congress at a time of intense public interest and excitement.
Winfield bore defeat with impatience, Gedney with equanimity. Win-
field, who especially could not endure the thought of defeat by a younger
adversary, often treated him with unnecessary severity ; always, however,
taking care to express his regret afterwards that the heat and zeal of con-
flict had carried him too far. Gedney, on the other hand, never suffered
to arise the occasion for apology or regret. He disdained to use his un-
rivaled powers of sarcasm and ridicule at the expense of a weaker adver-
sary, and throughout the entire course of a trial, he was scrupulous not
to say one word which might in any degree wound the sensibilities of a

469 THE COUNTY OF ORANGE.

younger member of the bar. Moreover, he always took pains to speak a
word of encouragement and praise to the younger lawyers whenever their
maiden efforts justified interest or respect.

Gedney's happiest hours were passed at his own fireside, while Win-
field loved to mingle freely with his fellow men. But Winfield's children
had died, one by one, in childhood, and it is pathetic to recall that he sank
to his long sleep while addressing little children on a peaceful Sunday
afternoon in June, just sixty-six years after his eyes had opened not far
away on a world in which he was destined to reap many cruel sorrows,
some substantial rewards, and all the mocking, delusive delights of a
transient fame.

His friend. Judge Gedney, followed him only a month later as he sat
upon the porch of his home in Goshen. As together they had journeyed
through life, sharing its burdens and its conflicts, so in death they were
not long separated, and in the manner of their summons they were alike
blessed, for to neither did it come upon a bed of lingering illness.

Tbeir lifelong friend. Judge Stephen W. Fullerton, was not so fortu-
nate. Surviving his old associates fourteen years, he lived to see the
world march past him and to realize the bitter truth that it takes but little
interest in a lawyer, however prominent, popular or useful he may have
been, after his activities and usefulness have ceased. And yet Judge Ful-
lerton possessed some traits of character which should have ensured him,
above all his fellows, from the sharp tooth of either ingratitude or neglect.
He actually gave away three fortunes. His generosity knew no bounds.
An appeal to his sympathies was never made in vain. A claim put for-
ward in the name of friendship was to him sacred and admitted of no
hesitation. Every consideration of selfishness or even of prudence went
down before the spectacle of a friend in need. It was inevitable that a
nature so generous and so confiding should often be imposed upon by
unworthy claims, but to these he never referred with bitterness or even
regret. A few dear friends, including especially Judge Hirschberg and
Walter C. Anthony, were true and faithful to the last, and it must be a
satisfaction to them to know that their loyal, undeviating attachment
cheered and consoled the last hours of a lawyer who once shared with
Winfield and Gedney undisputed preeminence at the bar of Orange
County.

For never were tender, affectionate and generous traits of character —

THE BENCH AND BAR. 470

often assumed to be inconsistent with the coldness and sternness of the
law — joined to a more severe, patient, thorough, comprehensive training
in the law than in the case of Judge Fullerton. To him the law was
a science and the practice of it an art demanding the sleepless pursuit
and worship of its votaries. To the principles of such a science and the
rules of such an art, having for their object the most exalted end of all
organized society, the establishment of truth and the maintenance of
justice, he was willing to consecrate the noblest energies of his mind and
heart. To him no labor was too hard, no sacrifice too great to deter him
from mastering the minutest details of a complicated case or from ascer-
taining and applying the principles by which it should be governed. When
he came to court to present it every form in which difficulty might be
apprehended or obstacles interposed had been anticipated and provided
for. He always tried the case on both sides before he went to court, and
his opponents never raised many of the points which he, in his anxious
survey, had most dreaded. His thorough knowledge of the rules of evi-
dence enabled him to introduce testimony upon some minor issue in the
case which was afterwards used with telling effect upon the main issue.
In his addresses to the jury he discarded every appeal to mere sentiment
and sought to impress only their reason and their judgment. His analy-
sis of the evidence was so close and perfect, his presentation of it so
clear and convincing that the jury were led to think that his was the
view they had taken of it all the time it was being given. Gathering up
the different threads of narrative in the case he wove them together in
a strand of pitiless, impervious, cohesive logic that not all the frantic
efforts of his adversary could avail to unwind. Such was the man who,
like Gedney, had also been county judge and district attorney of the
county, to whom Mr. Marsh, as the spokeman of the Orange County
bar, paid fitting tribute at the Newburgh court house in June, 1902 —
Luther R. Marsh who at the time of his own death in 1903, constituted
the last lingering tie between the present and the past.

No history of Orange County is complete that fails to chronicle the
twelve years' residence of Luther R. Marsh, who imparted luster to
every scene in which he mingled, dignity to every spot in which he lin-
gered. He spent in Middletown the closing years of a life which had
been marked by the most intense ardor and activity in his profession,
and, though he had retired from active practice when he settled in Orange

471 THE COUNTY OF ORANGE,

County, he was drawn into court after that upon two occasions in liti-
gations arising in the county. The intimate friend all his life of Orange
County's ablest sons, from the Hoffmans to the Fullertons, he became the
friend, the companion, the idol of a new generation of its lawyers when
he came to Middletown in 1889, being then nearly eighty years of age.
For though he lived to be ninety, he never became old, worn or feeble in
spirit. In a public speech delivered a few months before his death, he de-
clared that to be the happiest period of his life. In his daily walk and
conversation he exemplified the philosophy of Rabbi Ben Ezra, as ex-
pressed by Browning:

"Grow old along with me!

The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made;

Our times are in His hand

Who saith 'A whole I planned.
Youth shows but half ; trust God : see all,

Nor be afraid !' "

Nor was he afraid. His daring vision sought to pierce the secrets of
the hereafter. For a long time before his death he was deeply interested
in spiritual phenomena and in the investigation of those manifestations
of persistent personal energy after death, the authenticity of which con-
titutes the only proof we can ever obtain of the doctrine of immortality.
Trained to estimate the weight and value of evidence, engaged during
his entire professional career in convincing arguments as to its proper
construction and effect, he accepted as sufficient and satisfactory the evi-
dence adduced to him of communications and impressions still conveyed,
as the church even now maintains they were of old, from those who have
passed on to the spirit world.

But, though during his later years he clearly saw how trivial were the
ordinary ambitions and pursuits of men ; though his thoughts became more
and more centered upon things spiritual and eternal, yet he never lost his
interest in the sterling values and, above all, in the beautiful friendships
of life. Childhood, youth and manhood held each its claim upon his
tender regard, his ready understanding, his never-failing sympathy. To
him more than to any man I ever knew do Goldsmith's immortal lines
apply:

"E'en children followed, w'th endearing wile,
And plucked his gown, to share the good man's smile.

THE BENCH AND BAR. 472

His ready smile a parent's warmth exprest;
Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distrest;
To them his heart, his love, his griefs, were given,
But all his serious thoughts had rest in Heaven :
As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form,
Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm.
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread,
Eternal sunshine settles on its head."

Luther R. Marsh was unquestionably the most original, brillient, fas-
cinating, prolific, versatile genius that ever dwelt in Orange County during
the years in which in him it "entertained an angel unawares." He mingled
on equal terms with the greatest men of his generation. He was a part-
ner of Daniel Webster. Among my most cherished possessions is the
tin sign which Mr. Marsh had framed and hanging for many years in his
study, bearing in his own handwriting the inscription :

Luther R. Marsh."

"In 184s, on Mr. Webster's retirement from business to return to the Senate of
the United States, I took this sign off from our office door, 44 Wall Street, New
York, where it had been during our partnership.

When Webster was dying in 1852, Henry J. Raymond, the gifted editor
of the New York Times, wrote :

"My Dear Marsh : — We hear from Marshfield that Mr. Webster cannot live
through the day. I want from you, if it is possible, for to-morrow morning, an
article — of what kind you know a good deal better than I can tell you. *****
No man in this city certainly can do it so well. Nine o'clock this evening, or even
ten, will be early enough to have it here.

Yours as ever,

H. J. Raymond."

The article, occupying over four columns, was there on time. Mr.
Marsh, that afternoon, upon a moment's notice, at a single stroke, threw
off an estimate of Webster's genius and achievements that never was ex-
celled later, even in the glowing, studied periods of Everett, Winthrop,
and Curtis.

When in 1869, Henry J. Raymond died, Mr. Marsh was invited to
become his successor, but he declined the honor fearing that the position,
though congenial to his tastes, would be too exacting in its demands.
When we consider that at this time Mr. Marsh was besieged by clients
and immersed in cases ; when we consider, too, that a busy lawyer is the
last one to whom a publisher would naturally turn (for there is no class
of men in whom the truly literary instinct combined with the gift of

473 THE COUNTY OF ORANGE.

literary expression is so rare as among successful lawyers), this recog-
nition of the unique literary distinction which Mr. Marsh had attained,
even while engaged in the fiercest legal contests with such hard-headed
lawyers as David Dudley Field, John Van Buren, Charles O'Conor, James
T. Brady, John K. Porter and Judge Comstock, is most impressive and
conclusive. But in his forensic contests the lawyer dominated the lit-
terateur. Any opponent who thought that because of Mr. Marsh's fin-
ished, faultless, elegant literary style he would escape hard blows and
sturdy onslaughts soon learned his mistake. He was, at about the time
he received this offer from the Times, in the very zenith of his powers and
his fame. Mr. Hunt, then the superintendent of public schools in
Massachusetts, thus wrote in 1873, of a trial he had just attended, in
which Mr. Marsh was opposed to Joseph H. Choate :

"I shall never forget the spectacle of that trial ; from the opening to the close, it
was the most perfect thing I ever saw. Having entered upon the study of law in
the late William Pitt Fessenden's office; having seen many able lawyers conduct
cases in court: — Fessenden and Evans in Maine, Rufus Choate and other great
lawyers in Boston, and, in the South, Yancey and others — allow me to say that I
never saw anything to be compared with the ease, dignity and power with which
Mr. Marsh managed everything."

But his splendid gifts and varied powers could not be restricted in
their exercise to the energies of the law and the graces of literature.
Equally fitted to shine in society or among scholars, in pulpit or press,
on the rostrum or in the forum; always facile princeps as poet or
preacher, essayist or journalist, publicist or philanthropist, advocate or
orator, his unapproached range and versatility mark him indisputably
as the Admirable Crichton of his land and age.

During the period covered by Mr. Marsh's impressive eulogy upon the
character and attainments of his friend Stephen W. Fullerton, the Orange
County bar was enriched by the weight, the influence and the learning
of a group of lawyers whose temperament disinclined them to the fierce
excitements, the rude conflicts, the temporary triumphs of the forum.
Foremost among them was Eugene A. Brewster, who, though he per-
sonally argued his cases with great ability and success before the appel-
late courts, where reason and reserve count for more than fervor and
fluency, was unskilled in the art of swaying a jury against its will or
snatching a verdict against the evidence. Mr. Brewster's warm admira-
tion for his great preceptor, Judge John W. Brown, may have uncon-

THE BENCH AND BAR. 474

sciously influenced his bearing, but his moral and intellectual equipment
was entirely his own. This embraced a deep sense of the responsibility
resting upon every lawyer to sustain the honor and dignity of an ancient
and honorable profession. He scrupulously maintained throughout a
busy and active career the high ideals with which he started out. His
aim was to ascertain the truth, not to circumvent it; to apply "the law,
not to evade it; to draw from the fountains of justice, not to pollute
them. He enjoyed the respect of the courts, of his brethren and of the
public because of his character as well as his ability, his virtues as well
as his talents. His whole life was a steady influence working for honesty
in the moral fibre of the community; a persistent power making for
righteousness ; a never-failing light guiding to the path of safety and of
honor. In him were incarnated those conserving principles, those for-
mative influences, those stimulating ideals, those ennobling traditions
which impart dignity to human life, strength to human character, stabil-
ity to human society.

David A. Scott was another eminent member of the same group. As
surrogate of the county for two terms his administration was distin-
guished by an unusual display of those qualities of breadth, wisdom,
patience, knowledge of human nature and capacity for affairs so pecu-
liarly requisite in a probate judge exercising jurisdiction over the saddest
controversies, disclosures and scenes ever presented for adjudication —
contested wills, disputed claims, angry accountings, recrimination between
brother and sister, calumniation of the dead, sordid passions and petty
avarice disrupting old friendships and family ties. In calming these dis-
sensions whenever possible and in deciding them whenever necessary
Judge Scott manifested that happy blending of tact, temper, common
sense, sound judgment, practical sagacity and professional learning so
essential in the office of surrogate. I say judge because the title sur-
rogate is a most unfortunate one. The office is known in other common-
wealths as that of probate judge. People are so influenced by mere
names that if such were the title here the claims of an able surrogate to
public respect would be more fully understood. When it is considered
that once in every generation the entire wealth of the county, including
vast fortunes amassed elsewhere by those who die residing in it, is ad-
ministered upon in this court and that nearly all the intricate and per-
plexing questions involved in its distribution are passed upon by the

475 THE COUNTY OF ORANGE.

surrogate, it will readily be seen that the duties and responsibilities of
this office are among the most important, extensive and onerous that can
devolve upon judicial officers.

It is now nearly fifty years since David A. Scott entered upon the
duties of this office. There are those who still remember the dignity and
grace with which he discharged them. It is forty years since he laid them
down. One year after the close of his second official term and one year
after Judge Michael H. Hirschberg had been admitted to the bar, they
entered into a partnership under the name of Scott & Hirschberg, which
continued until Mr. Scott's death. What this long, close association
meant to the younger member of the firm he alone fully knows. Surely
he would be the last to repel the suggestion that it doubtless profoundly
influenced a character still sensitive and impressionable when the intimacy
began. Indeed he himself bore affectionate testimony to this impress
when, in the court proceedings, held to honor his dead friend's memory,
he said : "For more "than twenty-one years we have labored together side
by side in the perfect intimacy and union of the partnership relation, and
realizing how very much I am indebted to his precepts, his example and
his support; with only sweet and grateful memories of that connection
now remaining, wholly unalloyed by even the momentary shadow of
doubt or distrust, and unvexed by even an occasional suggestion of dis-
cord or dissension — indeed one long and unbroken period of harmonious
intercourse, of joint and cheerful endeavor, and of undisturbed confidence
and esteem, I deem it a duty no less than a privilege to add my humble
meed of praise to the chorus of eulogy which I am sure will greet his
memory to-day."

In closing his tribute Judge Hirschberg said, with the heartfelt concur-
rence of the entire bar :

"And so passed away forever an honorable lawyer, a faithful friend, a
loving father, an estimable citizen, a good man. We will all miss his
familiar form, his friendly greeting, and his kindly presence. Let his
virtues be commemorated in the records of the court. Let the sweet and
wholesome fragrance of his memory remain, to inspire lawyers, living
and to come, to emulate his upright deeds, and to con the lasting lessons
of his pure and simple life."

And now as we pause in the contemplation of this fine and beautiful

THE BENCH AND BAR. 47^

character there rises before the mind another figure associated with the
days of Winfield and Gedney in Goshen ; of Fullerton, Brewster and Scott
in Newburgh — the figure of James G. Graham. It is difficult to classify
him in either group to which reference has been made. A constitution
naturally delicate led him to shrink from the strife and turmoil of sharply
contested trials and to prefer the seclusion of his office and his library.
Yet no lawyer of the period under consideration approached him in the
kind of oratory adapted to public and ceremonious occasions. Indeed
James G. Graham stands in a group or class alone. None but himself
could be his counterpart, for he was compacted of every creature's best.
In serenity he was equal to Scott, in strength to Winfield. In counsel
he was as wise as Brewster, in speech as gifted as Gedney. While in
vigor of expression he may be compared to Winfield and in felicity of
style to Gedney, yet he excelled them both in a certain tender grace,
a poetic touch, a romantic spell, an iridescent play of fancy and sentiment
which were the spontaneous reflection of an ardent, imaginative, spiritual
temperament, united to and controlled by exquisite literary taste.

He never received, either in life or in death, the public recognition due
to his splendid gifts and exalted character. He was ever generous in his
own praise of substantial worth. His tributes to his departed brethren
were marked by peculiar elevation of thought and tenderness of senti-
ment. A work professing to be history, seeking to readjust the balances
in which the superficial judgment of contemporaries is corrected by the
tardy recognition of posterity, should not fail to register the star of
James G. Graham in that brilliant constellation from which Marsh and
Winfield, Gedney and Fullerton, Brewster and Scott shed undying re-
fulgence upon the traditions and memories of the Orange County bar.
Let a garland of affectionate, reverent homage entwine the memory of
one who never failed himself to lay a chaplet of rosemary upon the grave
of friendship.

To this period also belongs Abram S. Cassedy. Admitted to practice
just fifty years ago, his rise from the time that he settled in Newburgh
was so rapid that he came into professional relations with the members
of both groups which have been considered, though they were all ad-
mitted to the bar several years before. Indeed he belonged to both
groups. He was emphatically what is meant by the expression "an all-
'round lawyer." He could work patiently and assiduously in his office

477 THE COUNTY OF ORANGE.

drawing contracts and giving counsel and then proceed to the court-
room to try his cases. His knowledge of the law commanded the respect
of the courts, while his earnestness and sincerity produced a favorable
impression upon juries. He was essentially a man of affairs, equally
at home in the bank directors' meeting, the common council, the mayor's
office and the board of education. He was corporation counsel of his
city and district attorney of the county. He was the executor of large
estates and the trustee of great interests, one of the most important of
his transactions being his sale of the West Shore Railroad for the sum
of $22,000,000, and his distribution of the fund. In all the positions that
he occupied and all the capacities that he filled he was animated by the
very highest ideals of professional honor and personal probity. In many
ways the influence of his life and the force of his example have been more
persistent and abiding in Newburgh than in the case of lawyers whose
fame has been exclusively in the courts. His interesting and stainless
career affords a striking illustration of the results which may be accom-
plished by an acute and active mind concentrated upon one leading ob-
ject and directed in its energies by a simple, sincere, straightforward,
undeviating devotion to the noblest standards of public duty and private
honor.

Looming large and masterful in the second group of lawyers, the friend
and associate of Winfield, Gedney and Fullerton, who always valued
highly his legal opinions and who frequently were influenced by them,
though he distrusted his own ability to cope with them in court, comes the
figure of John G. Wilkin. Twice elected county judge, the first time in
1851 and the second time in 1883, the interval between these elections
was marked by the presence and the power of his persistent, aggressive,
dominating, yet at the same time winning, gracious, picturesque per-
sonality. Born to command, the exciting times in which he lived, covering
the most painful period of our national history, tended to develop his
natural powers of leadership. He had a talent for friendship. His abso-
lute devotion to his friends in times of adversity and defeat confirmed a
leadership which, however, was constantly challenged by those who, be-
cause they could not control him, sought to crush him. He tasted many
a time the bitter truth of Joubert's epigram that a man who by the same
act creates a friend and an enemy plays a losing game, because revenge
is a stronger principle than gratitude. But Judge Wilkin never knew

THE BENCH AND BAR. 478

that he had lost. He never accepted defeat. Like his old friend Hal-
stead Sweet, who always began the day after election to prepare for the
next election, the hour of Judge Wilkin's defeat was the most dangerous
one for his enemies. In the case of such a character, deeply implanted
with the love of power for its own sake as well as for its rewards, it was
inevitable that it should pass through many periods of storm and trial.
But if Judge Wilkin perforce bent to the storm he never quailed before it.
The deepest trial of his life was one that he never foresaw. This was the
failure in 1884 of the Middletown National Bank of which he was the
attorney and nominally the vice-president. This failure, which was pre-
cipitated by the unsuspected acts of the president in giving up to a grain
shipper who had acquired a hypnotic control over his mind, two hundred
thousand dollars' worth of bills of lading without the payment of the
drafts to which the bills of lading were attached, came to Judge Wilkin
with all the force of a cruel and Crushing accident. The spirit which
no opposition could daunt recoiled for a moment under the stab of treach-
ery. But only for a moment. Quickly recovering himself — though deeply
pained and humiliated that such a distaster should come to an institution
with which he was connected and especially to friends who might have
been influenced by his name — the strength, the courage, the manliness
of his royal character were never more strikingly exemplified, were never
shown to greater advantage than at this very time. He never flinched
from any obligation which this or any other relation, business, political,
social or professional entailed upon him. His devotion to his clients, his
determination to relieve them from the consequences of their own folly
or imprudence was absolute and fearless, never taking any note of
whether they could have avoided the plight they were in. If they were
in trouble through no fault of their own, of course anybody would be
glad to help them. But if they were in trouble through their own fault
the very addition to their troubles which this reflection caused them only
created a double claim upon Judge Wilkin's sympathies and energy. This
is the spirit of the true lawyer, who, when appealed to in distress, has no
more right to arrogate to himself the functions of court and jury and
decree that his client must take his punishment than a physician has to
refuse to cure a disease which his patient has incurred through a violation
of the laws of health or morality.

Judge Wilkin's interest in the young men who grew up about him never

479 THE COUNTY OF ORANGE.

deserted him. He welcomed their advances, he reciprocated their esteem,

he enjoyed their companionship. His reminiscences of the older bar were

lively and entertaining, his sense of humor keen, his exultation in life

and all its activities throbbing and intense. He was not ready to go when

the summons came and he made no hypocritical pretense of resignation

to it. His was a life so full of promise and performance, passion and

power, persuasiveness and preeminence that well may we exclaim with the

poet:

"But what rich life — what energy and glow !
Cordial to friend and chivalrous to foe!
Concede all foibles harshness would reprove,
And what choice attributes remain to love."

If James N. Pronk had given the thought and attention to his own inter-
ests that he gave to the interests of the public and to the development
of his city he would have died wealthy and famous. In his early manhood
when, as the only lawyer in Middletown, except Judge Wilkin, he acquired
a large practice, he quickly accumulated a fortune sufKcient to enable him
to build and wholly pay for what still remains the finest store and office
block in Middletown. He had nothing to do then, in order to a successful
life, but to take his ease and accept such work as he might enjoy. But
this was not his nature. He simply could not take his ease. He was
possessed by the desire to originate and carry forward every public enter-
prise that might benefit the town. He lived plainly and simply, had no
personal indulgences, spent nothing upon himself, denied himself every
pleasure in order that he might give himself wholly to the service of the
public. Every pleasure indeed except that of friends and books. He
loved the society of congenial spirits and he dwelt much among books.
But he was not selfish even in this. Instead of putting the books he
bought into his own library he put them into a public library. He estab-
lished the Lyceum, the fine circulating library of which gave to Middle-
town its first literary impetus. In connection with this he organized de-
bates in which the ablest men of the community discussed every moral,
social and political question of the day. These debates brought out the
native talent and debating powers of many men who otherwise might
have been silent, notable among them Israel O. Beattie, whose wide in-
formation, keen reasoning and sparkling wit are well remembered by
those who know how naturally his distinguished son. Judge John J.
Beattie, comes by these qualities.

THE BENCH AND BAR. 480

Moreover, Mr. Pronk brought to the platform of the Lyceum the
foremost intellects of his time — Henry Ward Beecher, Wendell Phillips,
Horace Greeley, Edward H. Chapin, Theodore L. Cuyler and many
others. I well remember when, a few years ago at Mohonk, Judge
Beattie and I introduced ourselves to Dr. Cuyler and mentioned Middle-
town, he at once exclaimed: "How's my old friend Pronk?" though they
had not met for forty years and he had not heard of his death.

The great mistake of Mr. Pronk's life was when he mortgaged his
fine building, on the income of which he might easily have lived, in order
to establish what became the passion and the idol of his life, Hillside
Cemetery. But was it a mistake? Is it not success, after all, to live in
lasting institutions? This cemetery is to-day the most beautiful resting
place of the dead in Orange County. Over this sacred spot where he
himself was laid, broods ever the sentiment inscribed over the tomb in St.
Paul's Cathedral of Sir Christopher Wren, its architect — "If you would
behold his monument look about you." (Si monumentum quaeris circum-
spice.)

Younger than any of the lawyers thus far considered, but entering
upon his professional life while theirs was still active, and dying prema-
turely before the close of those careers with which his own was strictly
contemporaneous, was William F. O'Neill. Perhaps no career was ever
more of a surprise to the public and to the profession than that of Mr.
O'Neill. From Winfield, Gedney and Fullerton with their distinguished
lineage, family influence, county connections, social position, superior
education, wide culture, courtly address and imposing presence much was
expected and expectation was always satisfied. But here was a young
man, who coming from Monticello to study law in Middletown with
Judge Groo and entering upon his career without any of these advan-
tages, boldly flung himself into the courts to try conclusions with the
ablest of Orange County's advocates and began at once to captivate juries
and to win his cases. Small in stature, unimpressive in appearance, de-
ficient in culture, unformed in style, averse to application, trying his cases
with very inadequate preparation, the lawyers were puzzled at first to
know the secret of his immediate and enormous success at the bar. It
lay, as they soon learned, in his faculty of making the jury think that he
always happened to be on the right side. It was like the case of the juror
who was descanting enthusiastically upon the magnificent, unrivaled

48i THE COUNTY OF ORANGE.

powers of Brougham as an advocate. "But," said a bystander, "I see that
you always give the verdict to Scarlett." "Scarlett, O yes," said the
juror. "Well, you see Scarlett is always on the right side."

Kfr. O'Neill was a natural verdict getter. He never went over the
heads of the jury. He talked with them on their own plane of thought,
sentiment and experience. Juries liked him personally. They felt inter-
ested in his success. I remember a trial in which he obtained a verdict
of $2,000 against the village of Port Jervis for a woman who had fallen
upon a defective sidewalk, but who did not appear to have been much in-
jured. After the verdict, one of the jurors, Coe Goble, of Greenville,
asked me what I thought of the verdict, to which I replied that they prob-
ably gave as much as the evidence justified, since she did not seem to be
hurt much. "Well," said Goble, "it was this way — we thought the woman
ought to have $1,000 and we thought Billy ought to have $1,000."

This familiar, affectionate reference to him as "Billy" indicates his
place as a popular idol. Indeed the boyishness of his appearance and
stature seemed to help him. People who saw him for the first time and
who had not expected much from him, went out of the court-room saying,
"Did you see how little Billy O'Neill laid him out?"

Mr. O'Neill made negligence cases a specialty, and he became known
far and wide as a negligence lawyer. Those who deprecate the rise of
the negligence lawyer and the increase in negligence cases during the last
forty years fail to make sufficient allowance for those changed conditions
in the business of the world under which its various currents of capital
and industry converge in one swollen stream of corporate enterprise and
control. This tends, on the one hand, to encourage professional alertness
in protecting the individual from corporate greed or neglect and, on the
other hand, to create extreme devotion to corporate interests seeking the
aid of professional skill and judgment. While the zeal of attorneys in
behalf of corporations is rarely condemned it is somewhat the fashion to
deprecate the negligence lawyer who takes the case of a client against a
corporation upon a contingent fee. As the client is usually destitute it
is difficult to see how his case is to be presented at all unless the attorney
takes his chances upon success. As courts and juries must determine that
the claim is a worthy one before it can succeed, the whole criticism seems
to resolve itself into the position that worthy causes and clients should be
deprived of a hearing. This feeling can be well understood on the part

THE BENCH AND BAR. 482

of corporations constantly compelled to pay damages on account of their
carelessness, but the expression of it comes with poor grace from lawyers
who receive large retainers and liberal fees from wealthy clients. It is
at least as fair to a client to wait for compensation until the work is done
as it is to insist on a retainer before any work at all is done. It is notice-
able that the criticism upon the contingent fee at the conclusion of the
case comes usually from the lawyer who expects a large fee at the begin-
ning of the case.

It is simple truth and justice to say that human Hfe and limb are safer
to-day in Orange County because that sturdy fighter and dangerous oppo-
nent, William F. O'Neill, caring not whether his client was poor or rich,
never allowed a case of negligence, once brought to his attention, to pass
unchallenged and unpresented to a court of justice. And if his example
and his influence have encouraged others, as indeed they have, in the same
path of professional honor and public duty, then he, too, has not lived in
vain.

The advent of Mr. O'Neill was coincident with the rise of a new gen-
eration of advocates who were confronted at first with a supremacy in the
older bar which never could have been ousted by superior talent. It
yielded at last to the only rivals it could not resist, decay and death, even
as now the lawyers I am about to name will soon surrender to a still later
generation their coveted place and prominence in the courts. ] say about
to name because, notwithstanding the considerations which suggest the
omission of any reference to the living, it seems to be inartistic and it
ought to be unnecessary to break off a narrative in the middle because
some of its characters are still living. Caution and delicacy may indeed
discourage, if not wholly forbid such unstinted praise as may be properly
bestowed upon a finished, rounded career, far removed from possible mar-
ring by some late and regrettable error. But, on the other hand, the
opinion of his contemporaries by one who has freely mingled with them
and frequently been pitted against them ought to be accurate, and, if
accurate, then interesting and valuable. How we would all enjoy now
Winfield's own characterization of Samuel J. Wilkin and William F.
Sharpe, his partner; of Benjamin F. Duryea and Joseph W. Gott, the
senior; of David F. Gedney and Stephen W. Fullerton. There are his-
tories of our own times and this is one of them. Let me proceed then,
diffidently, indeed, but still unflinchingly, to perform the task assigned to

483 THE COUNTY OF ORANGE.

me before the subjects and the generation chiefly interested in them have
all alike passed away; appealing to the judgment of those still able to
decide, upon the candor, fairness and impartiality of the estimates. In-
deed, if we wait until all contemporaries have passed away, who is left
to determine whether the estimates are just?

William J. Groo is older than the lawyers who came to the bar in the
late sixties, but he falls naturally in this group, because he came to
Orange County in 1866, when he at once took a foremost place among its
trial lawyers, his reputation having preceded him. He had already become
a leader of the bar of Sullivan County, where in 1856 he was elected its
district attorney. This leadership was, in itself, evidence of great ability,
for he had to win his spurs against such intellectual giants as General
Niven, Judge Bush, Senator Low and James L. Stewart. It is not
strange, then, that in him Winfield, Gedney and FuUerton found a match
for all their powers and an equal in all the arts and accomplishments of
the advocate. His perfect self-possession, his readiness in retort, his firm
grasp of the points in controversy, his unfailing memory enabling him to
marshal the testimony with crushing effect, his severe logic, his scathing
denunciation, his intrepid spirit, and, above all, his moral earnestness
combined to make him a dreaded and formidable adversary.

Judge Groo (for he acquired the title through his election as special
county judge of Orange County in the year 1868) has carried this quality
of moral earnestness, which so largely contributed to his success at the
bar, into all the interests and relations of life. He early espoused the
cause of temperance and has long been one of the most prominent mem-
bers of the prohibition party, which at different times has bestowed upon
him its complimentary but unsubstantial nomination for governor and
judge of the Court of Appeals. He has always insisted that the absolute
prohibition of the sale of liquors in the State of New York is not only a
righteous and necessary reform, but an entirely feasible one. The re-
markable strength of this movement in the South, followed as it has been
by recent prohibitory legislation in several of the States, is one of the
cheering rewards for unselfish, life-long devotion to principle which he is
permitted to enjoy in his declining years. There is no doubt whatever
that his sacrifices in behalf of this cause seriously interfered with his
later eminence at the bar, for such eminence, even when once achieved,
can be maintained only by sedulous, unrelaxed devotion; by steady, un-

THE BENCH. AND BAR. 484

qualified, undivided allegiance to that most exacting of all masters — the
law.

This consecration to higher duties and nobler aims than those involved
in mere professional success does not, however, constitute the sole reason
why Judge Groo ceased to be a familiar and prominent figure in the
courts of Orange County. This was due primarily to the removal of his
office to New York, where he continued to win many notable legal
triumphs until failing health compelled him to retire from active practice.
His dignified and honorable repose is divided between his home in Mid-
dletown and his summer retreat in his native county of Sullivan at Groo-
ville, so named in honor of one of his Revolutionary ancestors.

Though Lewis E. Carr has transferred his professional activities to a
wider field, yet he acquired and developed in Orange County those tran-
scendent qualities as a trial lawyer which have since, in nearly every
county of the State, excited the astonishment of the bar and the admira-
tion of the courts. From the very first he produced a profound impres-
sion upon Winfield, Gedney and Fullerton, with whom he engaged in
vigorous, courageous contest at a time when it was difficult, indeed, to
stand up against their powerful and almost irresistible influence. But it
was when he came to be associated with them in some most important
trials that they were even more impressed with his knowledge of funda-
mental principles, his wisdom in consultation, his mature and unerring
judgment. Judge Gedney once remarked in a public tribute to Mr. Carr
in his early life that it was possible to gain a far more accurate measure-
ment of a lawyer's real ability through association with him than in
opposition to him. He added that it was after enjoying such opportunities
to become acquainted with Mr. Carr that he was the better able to express
admiration of his surpassing talents as well as confidence in his brilliant
future. Mr. Carr has since then enjoyed many honors and some supreme
triumphs, but it is doubtful that any encomium has ever given him deeper
pleasure than this now amply verified prediction by so competent an au-
thority.

Nothing more surely attests the eminence which Mr. Carr has attained
in the State than the recognition of it by the Assembly of the State of
New York in inviting him to pronounce in its chamber the eulogy upon
its beloved speaker, S. Frederick Nixon, upon the memorial occasion
dignified by the attendance of the Governor, the Senate and the judges of

48s THE COUNTY OF ORANGE.

the Court of Appeals. In that august presence Mr. Carr, defending the
prerogatives of the State, said :

"However much we take pride in the nation's greatness and power we
cannot shut our eyes to the fact that in some way, not easy to understand,
the Federal Government of which we constitute no mean part, has been
steadily encroaching upon the province of the State, and year by year the
waves of its rising power are biting away some part of the shore on
which our feet should rest. * * * Preservation of the rights of the
State, as the framers of the Constitution intended and provided, is as
essential to the safety, security and perpetuity of the sisterhood of States
as the armies that carry and defend the flag and the navies that patrol
the sea and protect our harbors against the dangers of attack. Our State
is an empire in and of itself. Dominion over it and control of its price-
less interests are all our own, save to the narrow extent they were ex-
pressly yielded to give needed strength and requisite power for the pro-
tection of the whole."

This extract gives some idea of the force and clearness which charac-
terize all Mr. Carr's public utterances, but no extract can give any concep-
tion of his extraordinary powers as an advocate. The assembly indeed
had already enjoyed an unusual opportunity to witness their display, for
Mr. Carr was easily the most conspicuous and imposing figure in a. public
trial of great importance conducted before it, in which he made the prin-
cipal and prevailing argument. But it is perhaps in the appellate courts
that Mr. Carr's abilities find their most congenial field of exercise. There
his ready command of all the resources of a trained, vigorous and
richly stored in,tellect enables him to discuss every proposition pro-
pounded by the court, or advanced by his opponent, with a breadth of rea-
soning, a fertility of illustration, an array of authority which never fail to
arouse admiration and delight. Indeed in every argument or trial in which
he engages he organizes from the outset an intellectual duel. One who is
not prepared to cope with him on equal terms, or with a cause so strong
that it overcomes the intellectual handicap, will find it prudent not to enter
the lists with him.

When Mr. Carr resided in Port Jervis before going to Albany, where he
is the general counsel for the Delaware and Hudson Company and where
he is called as senior counsel into many important cases not at all con-
nected with railfoad litigation, such was his devotion to his profession that

THE BENCH AND BAR. 486

it was only in exciting political campaigns that he could yield himself to
the demands of the platform. But in Albany so insistent and repeated
have been the demands upon him that he has been compelled to yield more
frequently, until now his reputation is firmly established as a platform
speaker of rare attractiveness. A fair example of his after-dinner oratory
may be found, in fit company and enduring form, in the book entitled
"Modern Eloquence," edited by Speaker Thomas B. Reed ; it being a re-
sponse, at the banquet of the State Bar Association, in which, with a fine
blending of humor and seriousness, he commends that recent revival of
an ancient custom which has done so much already to revive and promote
the dignity of the bench — the wearing by judges of the robe of office.

The Orange County Bar has contributed to the bar of the State many
gifted sons of whom it has been, indeed, proud — Ogden Hoffman, William
H. Seward, William Fullerton and others — but it has never contributed
one of whose character, ability and fame it is more justly and tmiversally
proud than it is of the character, ability and fame of Lewis E. Carr.

Henry Bacon is now, indisputably, the leader of the Orange County
Bar. His career has been marked by a singleness of devotion to his pro-
fession rarely equaled. It was interrupted at one time by his service for
five years in the House of Representatives, in the debates of which he
bore an honorable part, impressing himself most favorably upon the
leaders of his own party and those of the opposition. But his heart was
all the time in the law, which he keenly enjoys as a science and reveres as
a master. Returning to Goshen at the expiration of his congressional
.service he threw himself with renewed ardor into the practice of his pro-
fession to which he has since applied himself with undeviating purpose,
persistency and power. The position of leadership now held by him is the
natural, inevitable and only consistent result of high endeavor and unfal-
tering purpose united to intellectual gifts and legal qualifications of a
superior order. Mr. Bacon has the legal instinct. He is not content until
he has penetrated to the heart of the mystery. He revels in a perplexing
and complicated case. He loves to unravel its intricacies and explore its
mazes.

Mr. Bacon has in the past twenty years tried more cases than any lawyer
in the county. He is retained in nearly every important trial. His mani-
fest knowledge of every principle of the law involved in the case always
commands the respect of the court and of the bar. In presenting his

487 THE COUNTY OF ORANGE.

views to the jury he relies upon logic rather than eloquence, upon con-
secutive force of argument rather than the arts of persuasion. In the
celebrated case of Magar vs. Hammond his opening address to the jury
upon the second trial was a masterpiece of close, coherent, cumulative
and convincing statement.

Mr. Bacon is never more interested than when he is confronted with
some grave question of constitutional construction. His attack upon the
constitutionality of the drainage law, which was declared invalid by the
Court of Appeals upon the arguments advanced by him, and in which he
was opposed by the eminent advocate John G. Milburn, will be long re-
membered.

All lawyers are true to their clients, but Mr. Bacon's inflexibility in the
assertion or defense of his client's rights is uncompromising to the last
degree. It has even been said that, in his zeal and ardor, he is willing to
trample upon all the ties of private friendship and all the claims of per-
sonal courtesy. But no client was ever heard to complain of this and,
after all, the fact remains that no lawyer can serve his clients with abso-
lute fidelity without, at times, wounding his neighbors and his friends. An
honest lawyer can know no one but his client and him crucified. His
standard of morality and manners, of duty and decorum is expressed in
the sentiment, "Stop pursuing my client and I have no further quarrel
with you." Mr. Bacon typifies this spirit and embodies this principle
in his professional life more strikingly than any lawyer who has ever
practiced at the bar of Orange County.

On the other hand, Mr. Bacon's social gifts and graces are in the high-
est degree winning and attractive. One would never suspect, in the velvet
palm that greets him at his threshold, the iron hand that crushed him
but the day before in court. One would never recognize in the beaming,
graceful host the hard-headed lawyer who, with stern, unflinching pur-
pose, will destroy him to-morrow. United in marriage to the brilliant and
accomplished daughter of one of America's purest and noblest statesmen,
Samuel J. Randall^ his home is a center of charming, courtly and gracious
hospitality dispensed with lavish, refined and unaffected generosity. Mr.
Bacon is the only lawyer in Orange County who has ever both recognized
and fulfilled his social duty to his brethren of the bar by throwing open
his home to them in receptions intended to bring the judges and the
lawyers together in social relations. In olden days and in other counties

THE BENCH AND BAR. 488

this custom once prevailed. Possibly it is because Orange County labors
under the misfortune of being a half-shire county — a calamity to any bar
for the reason, besides many others, that it effectually destroys the possi-
bility of having a suitable court house — that a spirit of comradeship
among its lawyers has never grown up. It is noticeable that in counties
where the legal interests converge in one central county seat the brotherly
spirit is more active. But, however that may be, Mr. Bacon is entitled
to the grateful acknowledgment of his efforts to suspend the asperities
of professional conflict in the solvent of social converse. In this, as in
every other respect, his leadership of the bar is supreme.

Walter C. Anthony preceded Mr. Bacon a few months in their student
life with Judge Gedney at Goshen. No one has painted so perfect and
beautiful a picture as he of those halcyon days in that country law of-
fice. In his memorial tribute he said :

"But of all the delightful hours spent with Judge Gedney I recall, with
most pleasure, our afternoon talks at the office. As the day was wearing
late and he began to make preparations to leave, he usually seemed to
want to draw me into conversation. Frequently it took the form of an
examination as to those branches of the law which I was then reading
upon. Occasionally he would draw me into the discussion of some legal
question, in which he would maintain an opinion opposed to that which
I expressed, and in which after combatting me, with all his ingenuity and
acuteness and frequently discomfiting me, he would in the end explain
the whole question and point out the errors of either side of the argu-
ment. At times some event of the day's work would be used as a founda-
tion for an explanation of the legal questions involved. In whatever way
the conversation was begun his evident purpose was that it should be
profitable to me in connection with the studies I was pursuing ; and when
that end had been accomplished our conversation would wander on 'at its
own sweet will,' touching on many and varied themes which all developed
new beauties and suggestiveness beneath the light of his varied learning
and fertile fancy. Is it to be wondered at that I recall them with a
chastened delight ? Judge Gedney was then in the very prime of his re-
markable powers. His mind was a storehouse of varied and interesting
knowledge, and his conversational and descriptive skill were not only
very great, but quite unique.

"I shall always regard it as one of the most fortunate circumstances of

489 THE COUNTY OF ORANGE.

my life that I was brought into such intimate association with David F.
Gedney. And as my life passes on into the 'sere and yellow leaf and I
sit among the lengthening shadows of its afternoon looking back upon
the friends and friendships of my youth, I shall very, very often recall
Judge Gedney — the slender, erect figure; the strongly marked face; the
scant but expressive gesture; the wonderfully melodious and well modu-
lated voice; the words so deftly chosen from a vocabulary surpassingly
rich and full, that they always reminded me of the sentence in holy writ:
'Words fitly spoken are like apples of gold in pictures of silver;' and
above all I shall recall his kind and generous deeds, the fit exponents of a
loving, loyal heart; and, thus recalling him, I shall often in the future
exclaim — as I have already in the past — in no empty phrase and with no
exaggeration of speech:

'Oh for the touch of a vanished hand
And the sound of a voice that is still !' "

This extract is made not solely to embellish the portrait of Judge
Gedney, the man — though I indeed left it unfinished intending thus to
invoke Mr. Anthony's aid in completing it — ^but also to illustrate Mr.
Anthony's own cast of mind, character and literary style. Mr. Anthony
is by nature and inclination, a scholar and a recluse. If he were rich he
would shut up his office and browse in his library; but not selfishly, for
no one has been more generous than he in responding to demands for
public and literary addresses. I heard him once, before the Chautauqua
Assembly, give a purely extemporaneous lecture upon wit and humor
which for range of reading, wealth of information, critical analysis and
brilliant characterization has never been surpassed by our most famous
lecturers; and yet it was delivered with a modesty, sweetness and sim-
plicity which seemed to deprecate the suggestion that it was anything out
of the ordinary.

His memory of Judge Gedney unconsciously reveals how deep was
the impression made in youth upon a mind singularly susceptible to the
charms and graces of literature and upon a nature no less susceptible to
the beauties and joys of friendship. As in the case of all such natures,
the books must be choice and the friends fit but few. Not, indeed, that
Mr. Anthony is deficient in the elements of personal popularity. His
election twice to the office of district attorney of the county, the duties

THE BENCH AND BAR. 49°

of which he most ably discharged, attests his popular strength. But it is
undeniable that his predilection for the society of the great and wise of
every age, to be found in his well-filled library, has tended more and more
to withdraw him from the society of the shallow, the superficial, the
frivolous. He stands to-day a lonely but alluring figure, on whose heights
those who choose to follow may find in him the charming companion, the
accomplished scholar, the earnest inquirer, the inspiring instructor.

Let no captious reader take cynical exception to the note of honest
praise sounded in these memoirs. Let it be remembered that, out of hun-
dreds of lawyers, only a few of those entitled to admiration and praise
have been selected for extended mention. While personal memoirs should
be accurate they need not be exhaustive. In those rare instances in
which conspicuous talent has yielded to temptation and, in weakness or
dishonor, forfeited public respect, it has seemed to be the truest kindness
to pass over it in silence. Indeed, as one surveys the procession down
half a century of those who have become notable in the law he is pro-
foundly impressed that not by infirm, invertebrate character have they
gained their prominence but only by firm resolution, high endeavor,
moral purpose and intellectual power. One is led to wonder not that
there should be so few entitled to praise, but that there should be so
many. Impartial criticism will demand of the contemporary chronicler
not that his praise be stinted, but only that it be discriminating.

Indeed only the most unstinted, unqualified praise would be either just
or appropriate in summoning from that stately procession of great and
honored lawyers the lofty, imposing figure of Judge John J. Beattie, who
for eighteen years — 1889 to 1907 — presided over the County Court of
Orange. County, having been elected for three successive terms. His
dignity of presence, weight of character and wealth of learning amply
sustained the traditions of a bench once occupied by Gedney and Fuller-
ton. Many of Judge Beattie's decisions have been in cases of far-reach-
ing public importance — notably the case involving the construction of the
eight-hour law in which Judge Beattie decided that the provision pro-
hibiting a contractor from allowing his men to work over eight hours
a day on a public improvement was unconstitutional and void. The Ap-
pellate Division reversed but the Court of Appeals affirmed Judge Beattie
in an opinion sustaining every position which Judge Beattie had taken in
his opinion.

491 THE COUNTY OF ORANGE.

Judge Beattie is grounded in the principles of the law. In all that he
does he is thorough, going to the very bottom of the case whether as to
the law or the facts. This quality was strikingly brought out in the case
tried by him for eight days before Judge Maddox involving the liability
of a railroad company for the damage resulting from the explosion of a
locomotive boiler. There was absolutely nothing about a boiler that
Judge Beattie did not understand. One would have supposed that he
had been brought up in boiler works and had then run an engine on the
road. He succeeded in dividing the jury and Judge Maddox said after
the trial that he had never seen a finer display of sheer intellectuality
than Judge Beattie's management of the defense.

He is an omniverous reader and his marvelous memory retains all
that he ever read. His conversation is an intellectual feast, for he pours
out a never-failing stream of literary anecdote, historic incident and
choice passages from the classics of every age, all ready to gush forth
from his well-stored memory as the conversation glances from one sub-
ject to another.

Judge Beattie- carries into his retirement from the County Court the
gratitude and respect of the bar and of the public for the fine example
of judicial dignity and learning which he has given for eighteen years —
an example which may well be followed not only by all who succeed him
in the County Court, but by all who administer in the same court houses
and from the same bench the wider jurisdiction of the Supreme Court.

Having considered several leaders of the bar who came into practice
in the late sixties, but who, like their predecessors, Winfield, Gedney and
Fullerton, were never invited to the bench of the Supreme Court, we come
now naturally to that group of their early associates who have achieved
judicial honors, those honors which have always held a glittering fascina-
tion for the bar whether in the wearing or the recounting of them. There
never have been enough judgeships to go around and the long tenure
now established wholly excludes rotation among the leaders of the bar
in respect to judicial position. Hence the prospect that any member of
the bar, however able, will ever attain judicial honors is so remote and
dependent upon so many unforeseen conditions that when they do de-
.scend and repose upon the modest brow of some highly favored but
always unenvied brother, the circumstances combining to produce such
a fortuitous selection possess all the charm of romance and all the fasci-

THE BENCH AND BAR. 49^

nation of a fairy tale. While it is true that many unforeseen conditions
must always unite in determining the destination of this coveted prize,
there still seems to be one inexorable condition to which all Orange
County aspirants must conform. They must not reside in the interior of
the county. They must practice in the old, historic city of Newburgh — a
city which has always taken a deep, honorable, patriotic pride in its
Revolutionary associations and in the land they represent, but which has
no more pride in, no more sense of connection with. Orange County as
a whole than West Point has. Its bar has always been distinguished for
great ability and high character.

The Supreme Court of the State of New York, the wide jurisdiction
of which extends from Long Island to the St. Lawrence and the Lakes,
was never more fortunate than in the acquisition to its bench from the
Newburgh bar of the two Browns, father and son — John W. Brown and
Charles F. Brown — the elder having ascended the bench in 1850 and the
younger in 1883.

It is Charles F. Brown who belongs to the period we are now consider-
ing. Graduated from Yale College in 1866, admitted to practice in 1868,
elected district attorney in 1874 arid county judge in 1877, he resigned in
1882 the position of county judge to assume the duties of supreme court
judge.

Mr. Winfield had always ardently desired a position upon the bench
of the Supreme Court. It was one of the bitterest disappointments of
his life that he so narrowly missed this object of his ambition in 1875,
when Judge Dykman was elected. In that year the widespread revolt
among the bar and public against the re-election of that most unpopular
official. Judge Tappen, who had received the regular democratic nomina-
tion, made it evident that any independent democratic candidate who
should receive the endorsement of the republican convention would be
elected. Mr. Winfield's hopes of receiving this endorsement rose high
and were on the point of being realized when an unexpected influence in-
tervened to dash them. General Benjamin F. Tracy, who had a long-
standing personal feud with William Fullerton, the brother of Stephen
W. Fullerton, suddenly came to the conclusion that he did not want upon
the bench an intimate friend of the Fullertons. He therefore threw his
influence in favor of Jackson O. Dykman, then a prominent democratic
lawyer of Westchester County, who thus received the nomination. His

493 THE COUNTY OF ORANGE.

election by a large democratic and republican vote confirmed the pre-
diction that such a coalition would easily accomplish the defeat of Judge
Tappen. Orange County, notwithstanding that it shared Mr. Winfield's
disappointment, followed his generous lead in supporting Judge Dykman
and gave him a majority of 10,000. No one labored for Mr. Winfield's
nomination at this time more earnestly than Charles F. Brown himself.

In 1882 Mr. Winfield's hopes of obtaining a nomination revived, but
Charles F. Brown, who cherished the natural and honorable ambition to
emulate his father's noble example and distinguished career as a jurist,
felt that he ought not to stand aside again. He' of course secured the
delegate from his own assembly district without opposition. Overcoming
the opposition offered by Mr. Winfield's friends in the second assembly
district, he secured its delegate also. By thus presenting a united front
Orange County was able to successfully assert its claims in the judicial
convention and to secure for Judge Brown the nomination that was fol-
lowed by his election.

No one was more gratified by Judge Brown's election than Mr. Win-
field himself, especially as it involved the defeat of General Tracy, the
very man who, seven years before, had snatched from him the same
prize when almost within his grasp. When General Tracy, of Kings
County, was nominated by the republican convention against Judge
Brown, of Orange County, he confidently expected to defeat Judge
Brown, whose greatness was then unknown to the district at large,
through the promised support of many large Brooklyn interests. But all
his calculations were confounded by a wholly unexpected event. This
was the cataclysm in which Grover Cleveland, with whom Judge Brown
was running, carried the State by the enormous, unprecedented majority
of 200,000.

Thus was Orange County enabled to contribute to the bench of the
Supreme Court a jurist who, in the fourteen years of his incumbency,
made a profound, a lasting impression upon the jurisprudence not only of
his State but of his country.

After serving for six years with great acceptance in the trial and
special terms, he was, upon the formation of the second division of the
Court of Appeals, promoted to its bench. His services during the four
years' existence of that court were of the highest value, his luminous
opinions being still quoted and followed in every State in the Union.

THE BENCH AND BAR. 494

Some of the litigations which came before him were in the highest de-
cree difficult and complicated ; one of the most important being the case
involving the construction of the Tilden will, in which the opinion of
Judge Brown, declaring the trusts invalid, was adopted by the court. His
■opinions rendered in this court constitute an imperishable monument to
his learning and ability.

Judge Brown's manner upon the bench, at trial and special term, was
a happy mingling of simplicity and dignity. His most noticeable personal
trait was his entire lack of self-consciousness. He never thought about
himself or about the impression which he might be making upon the bar
or the public. His mind was wholly upon the case and upon the prin-
ciples involved in it. He was considerate of the feelings of counsel and
rarely rebuked them for imperfect presentation of their views. When
they wandered from the point he thought about the case and when they
came back to the case he followed them again. It is simply the truth of
history to say that the members of the bar, not only of Orange County
but of the entire State, do not expect to see in this generation a nearer
approach to the ideal judge than they were permitted to behold during the
fourteen years of Judge Brown's incumbency.

There was one marked characteristic of Judge Brown while upon the
bench which deserves more than a passing mention. After a case was
submitted to him and while it was still under consideration he was never
afraid to enter upon a discussion of the principles involved in it, with
either of the counsel he might happen to meet, if he felt that such a dis-
cussion might prove profitable. In this respect he differed from somo cf
his colleagues who were perfectly aghast at the thought of counsel con-
versing with them upon any phase of a pending case in the absence of op-
posing counsel. This of course was due to their high sense of the im-
portance of preserving not only real impartiality but the strictest appear-
ance of impartiality. But there was something in Judge Brown's char-
acter which did not need the protection of such a rule ; something in the
very atmosphere which he threw out ; something in the impression which
he gave of being simply a thinking, working, impersonal, intellectual ma-
chine, which left no room for misunderstanding on the part of any lawyer
thus admitted to a share in his deliberations and which left his judicial
independence and impartiality absolutely untouched. This capacity at
once constitutes the highest test and the consummate type of the strictly

495 THE COUNTY OF ORANGE.

judicial temperament. To this test Judge Brown easily responded and
of this type he was the perfect embodiment.

No one can be accused of sycophancy in awarding to a judge long
since retired from the bench his merited meed of praise and gratitude
for distinguished public services. Nor even in the case of judges still
occupying the bench can such a charge fairly lie when the faithful hisr
torian surveying and reviewing, from the serene heights of retirement
and reflection, the stirring scenes in which once he bore an active part, is
now as indifferent to, as independent of, the opinions of judges as they
are of his. It would indeed be far more entertaining if there could be
contributed to this volume the opinions which the judges hold of each
other, thrown into literary form instead of merely being promulgated
from the bench or disseminated by the press. When, upon the occasion
of Queen Victoria's jubilee, the judges met in London to prepare an
address to Her Majesty, the proposed draught submitted to them began
with the words, "Conscious as we are of our shortcomings," whereupon
Lord Bowen gravely suggested, as an amendment, "Conscious as we are
of each other's shortcomings." Human nature is very much the same
here and in England; very much the same, in its manifestations, among
judges and among lawyers.

Judge William D. Dickey ascended the bench in 1896, one year before
Judge Brown's retirement from it. The second judicial district, of
which Orange County then formed a part, was for many years demo-
cratic and it was not unusual for the republican conventions to endorse
the democratic nominations. But in 1895 there seemed to be such a fair
prospect for success that the republicans put forward a full ticket of
judicial nominees, including Judge Dickey, who was elected, though one
of his associates upon the ticket, Hugo Hirsch, of Brooklyn, was defeated
by Judge Martin J. Keogh, whose court ought to be attended every year
by visiting delegations of judges from all parts of the State as a training
school and object lesson, illustrating how a busy judge may at all times,
in all circumstances and under all provocations still be the model, fault-
less, consummate gentleman.

Although Judge Dickey removed from Newburgli to Brooklyn soon
after his election and is counted as a judge of the second judicial district,
while Orange County is now a part of the ninth judicial district, still
Orange County is where he was born; where his professional life was

THE BENCH AND BAR. 496

passed; where he rose to prominence and power, and where he lived
when he was elevated to the bench. He exhibited even in boyhood the
qualities which have marked his public career, his patriotic ardor inspir-
ing him to enlist in the Union Army when only seventeen years of. age;
his promotion being so rapid that before he was twenty years old he had
been breveted colonel in recognition of conspicuous gallantry.

Admitted to practice soon after the close of the Civil War he threw
himself with characteristic energy not merely into the legal contests
which arose in his city, but into all the public and political controversies
of the day. Ardent in his affections and implacable in his hatreds, loyal
to his friends and relentless to his enemies, he soon acquired an extensive
influence and attracted to himself a devoted following, both personal and
political.

The public spirit and civic pride shown by Judge Dickey in promoting
every enterprise tending to beautify or benefit his native city was gener-
ally recognized and his election to the constitutional convention of 1893
was a distinct turning point in his career. His ability, vigilance, au-
thority, force of character and readiness in debate, soon gave him a dom-
inant influence in the deliberations of that highly intellectual body^an
influence aided by his commanding presence and resonant voice, advan-
tages not without value in that most difficult of all auditoriums, the as-
sembly chamber in the Capitol at Albany. Among the many far-reaching
reforms which he proposed or advocated in the convention he undoubt-
edly looks back with special satisfaction upon the provision incorporated,
with his active support, in the new constitution prohibiting any legislative
limitation upon the amount of recovery for death occasioned by negli-
gence, since he has had abundant occasion in his experience upon the
bench to verify his convictions of the justice, necessity and public policy
of this amendment.

Judge Dickey displays upon the bench the same sterling qualities which
marked his active professional career. Among them none is more pro-
nounced than his remembrance of and kindness to old and valued friends.
The exercise by a judge of the patronage necessarily pertaining to his
office has always been a trying question for him. But since one lawyer
has no natural, superior claim over any other lawyer upon the fruits of
patronage, there seems to be no reason why a judge should not be per-
mitted to gratify his feelings of friendship and esteem in the appoint-

497 THE COUNTY OF ORANGE.

ment of referees whom he knows to be not only estimable but entirely
capable. No one questioned this sentiment or principle of conduct when
Judge Brown appointed his old friend and partner, Mr. Cassedy referee
to sell the West Shore railroad, or when he appointed his old friend,
William Harvey Clark, of Minisink, receiver of the Port Jervis and Mon-
ticello railroad; Mr. Clark, by the way, proving to be so capable a re-
ceiver that he not only paid its debts but surprised the stockholders by
handing over to them a large amount of money.

But in the distribution of patronage Judge Dickey has not only been
loyal to the claims of private friendship; he has nobly used it in the
recognition of the debt which the public owes to distinguished public
.services and sacrifices. I know one able lawyer whose physical infirmi-
ties disqualify him from active practice at the bar, but whose eye is still
as clear, whose judgment as alert as when, from the heights of Gettys-
burg, he directed the Federal forces on the first day of the battle and
saved the fortunes of the day till they could be turned and redeemed upon
the morrow. In appointing this old hero to important service in various
public condemnation proceedings, in which his sound judgment and wide
experience have been utilized to the public benefit. Judge Dickey has en-
titled himself to the gratitude of all who believe that conspicuous worth
and patriotic service should not be forgotten and neglected by judges any
more than by governors or presidents. And personal gratitude is no less
due to Judge Dickey from all those whose appointment by him to posi-
tions of trust and responsibility has enabled them to justify his own un-
erring judgment as to their fitness and capacity.

It was in the autumn of 1902 that Judge Dickey was called upon to
pass through the first deep sorrow of his life in the loss of his only son,
Frank R. Dickey, cut ofif in his young manhood at the very beginning of
his promising career at the bar. Born and educated in Newburgh he
had followed his father to Brooklyn, where he established himself in
practice and where he soon won a large and growing clientage. His solid
abilities; his pure, lofty character; his open, sincere nature; his refined,
engaging manners ; his gentle, amiable disposition united to create a per-
sonality of singular charm and interest. Troops of new friends, attracted
to him by the graces of a sweet and beautiful character, joined with those
who had always known and loved him in heartfelt sorrow over the un-
timely grave of Frank R. Dickey.

THE BENCH AND BAR. 498

Judge Dickey's wide experience ih affairs, with his knowledge of
human nature, its secret springs and devious ways, enables him lo arrive
at decisions always prompt and usually just. His influence upon the
bench has always been powerfully exerted in support of the domestic
virtues and social purity. Gambling, which is fast becoming one of the
most threatening of our national dangers, as it is already one of the
most degrading and corrupting of our social vices, whether practiced by
men in policy shops, or by 'women at bridge parties, finds in him, when-
ever it comes within his judicial purview, neither countenance nor toler-
ation.

There is one trait of Judge Dickey upon the bench which calls for
special mention. When, in an action which has been tried and decided
by him, without a jury, the attorneys come before him for settlement of
the case upon appeal, he does not seek to emasculate the appeal, as some
judges in their weakness and vanity do, by striking olit the exceptions
designed to bring up sharply for review the points of difference between
him and the defeated counsel. He always gives the unsuccessful and dis-
satisfied litigant a fair opportunity to review every issuable ruling and
to get a reversal if he can. He is not hyper-sensitive upon the subject
of being sustained by the appellate courts. Indeed, his mental attitude
toward them is doubtless reflected in the remark once made by the
famous judge. Lord Young, when he was told that one of his decisions
had been affirmed upon appeal by the House of Lords, "Well, I may have
been right, notwithstanding," said Lord Young.

As Judge Dickey has never been assigned to the Appellate Division
and much prefers the close contact with the bar and with vital human
interests which is enjoyed by judges constantly engaged in trial term
and special term, he has never felt called upon to accompany his decisions
with opinions of any length. When he does write, his opinions are clear,
terse and sententious. Indeed there is very little satisfaction for a judge
at special term in writing elaborate opinions, only to find them arrested
and archived in that mere vestibule of fame, that hall of unmerited but
predestined and pathetic oblivion known as the Miscellaneous Reports.

But the waters of a cruel, though often kindly, oblivion can never wholly
submerge the fine superstructure of judicial fame reared by Judge Michael
H. Hirschberg upon a foundation of singularly exclusive, concentrated,
severe, professional, intellectual and literary training. Born and reared

499 THE COUNTY OF ORANGE.

in Newburgh, but coming to practice at the bar without those intermediate
college advantages enjoyed by his life-long friend and associate, Judge
Brown, whom he succeeded upon the bench, he has, nevertheless, strik-
ingly verified the saying of Carlyle that, after all, books are the best uni-
versity. During all the years of his professional activity in Orange
County he sedulously, patiently wrought out, cultivated and perfected a
crisp, nervous, virile, epigrammatic, yet withal, polished, mellifluous, or-
nate and opulent English style which constituted an admirable discipline
and equipment for the very field of juristical service in which he was later
destined to engage.

Elected in 1896 to a seat upon the bench, he was, after a brief period
of service at trial and special terms, assigned to the Appellate Division,
and later, upon the retirement of Judge Goodrich, he was appointed the
presiding justice of the court. This was the opportunity for which his
slumbering, but not unready, accomplishments long had waited. Then
ensued the disclosure to his judicial associates and to the bar of the State
of those attainments as a writer and as a jurist, which had long been
known to the bench and bar of his county and his district. While com-
parisons are often more dangerous than odious his career almost inevit-
ably reminds one of that literary lawyer, known then chiefly for his
writing of "The Blue and the Grey," who was summoned by his friend.
Governor Cornell, from his scholarly seclusion at Ithaca to take a seat
upon the bench of the Court of Appeals ; and who thereupon enriched the
literature of the law with a body of opinions, unrivaled for English style
and judicial learning, which have entranced and instructed two genera-
tions of lawyers. Equally true is it of Judge Hirschberg that already has
he permanently enriched the Reports of the Appellate Division with a
series of opinions which, for lucidity of statement, force of reasoning,
felicity of style, and perfect command of the literary implements adapted
to the expression of exact distinctions or delicate discriminations, stand
unrivaled in the pages of these imposing volumes, which will long per-
petuate his fame as a judicial writer.

One characteristic of Judge Hirschberg during his brief service in
holding trial terms should be mentioned, because no ponderous tomes can
reveal character. Contemporary history must transfix for posterity the
personal traits and manners of a judge. When Judge Hirschberg was
elected even his intimate friends supposed, from long familiarity with his

THE BENCH AND BAR. Soo

extraordinary quickness of mental action, his scintillations of repartee in
social life and his swift rejoinder at the bar, that he would show some im-
patience with the slowness, dulness and density due to imperfect prepara-
tion or inherent inaptitude, which every judge is called upon, more or
less frequently, to endure; that he would find it difficult to restrain the
bubblings of wit and sarcasm at the expense of ignorance or incapacity.
But on the contrary, he proved to be the most gentle, indulgent and long-
suffering of judges. The wearisome lawyers might drone on, he made no
effort to take the trial of the case out of their hands and try it himself.
j?Te could try it better than they, but he felt it his duty to let them try it in
their own way. No one could tell what he was thinking of them or their
methods. He might be a maelstrom of seething disgust or amusement
within ; but he wore the impassive, inscrutable, incommunicative exterior
of a sphinx. Under the responsibility of his great office he unconsciously
developed and engrafted that quality which Judge Jenks in his impressive
eulogy upon Judge Wilmot M. Smith declared to be almost the greatest
attribute of a judge — infinite patience.

And since the entire bar of Orange County regarded with peculiar af-
fection the character of Judge Smith and now holds in deepest veneration
his sacred memory, it is not amiss to incorporate in this record that ex-
pression of its feelings by Judge Hirschberg himself, which sheds a re-
flected light upon his own standards of duty and with which this attempt
to limn his portrait for succeeding generations may fitly close :

"Judge Smith was truly an ideal jurist, profound as a lawyer, estimable
as a citizen, lovable as a man. The mortal part of each life ends neces-
sarily in nothing but an insignificant contribution to an immense volume
of pathetic dust, but the spiritual sense is satisfied when, as in this instance,
the ashes are sanctified with the memory of a noble life devoted to duty
and glorified with the love of God, of justice and of humanity.''

And now, having sought to project upon the canvas a faithful por-
traiture of the judges who were drawn into the public service from the
Orange County bar, within the period embraced in these personal recol-
lections, it is convenient and fitting at this time to briefly outline the condi-
tions of practice which prevailed in Orange County at the time they came
to the bar — Judge Dickey in 1866 and Judges Brown and Hirschberg in
1868 — when Winfield, Gedney and Fullerton were at the zenith of their
powers and their reputation. It is a great mistake to assume that the

SOI THE COUNTY OF ORANGE.

older members of the bar were satisfied with these conditions. On the
contrary, they bitterly chafed under them. The number of judges was
wholly inadequate to the needs of the district, as will readily be seen when
it is considered that twenty-five judges are now required to serve the same
territory then covered by only four judges upon whom devolved all the
motions, trials and appeals arising and heard within it. The ever-increas-
ing volume of business created by the rapid growth of Brooklyn made
it impossible for the judges to hold a trial term — then called the "circuit
term" — longer than five days. The judges were indeed upon a circuit, for
they were always under assignment to open court in some other county on
the following Monday. Every Thursday afternoon or Friday morning
the judge marked off the calendar every case which could not be tried in
time to enable him to leave on Friday afternoon in order to hold his Sat-
urday special term. This arbitrary, inexorable limitation of time, which
was equivalent to shutting out many cases that had been carefully pre-
pared, was most cruel to the younger members of the bar whose sole
chance of either emolument or distinction lay in getting their cases tried ;
while to say that these conditions were satisfactory to the older members
of the bar of that period would violate the truth of history. They always
unduly and often indecently accelerated the trial of important cases in
which advocates like Winfield and Gedney were spurred to an undignified
celerity which was not merely distasteful but detestable to them. Both
Winfield and Gedney were tenacious of dignity, deliberation and decorum
in the administration of justice. They disliked extremely to be told, "Go
on with the case, gentlemen," or to be asked, "What are you waiting for ?"
They could not share the glee manifested by the judge when he succeeded
in having three juries "out" at one time, and boasted to the justices of
Sessions at his side how he was "expediting the business." They, too,
wanted the business advanced, but they wanted it done with due regard to
the traditions and the usages of the bar. Winfield was especially the dis-
tinct representative in this county of the old Websterian school of advo-
cates. He believed earnestly in the maintenance of all that form and
dignity, of all those ancient usages and proprieties which once uniformly
marked the relations to each other of the bench and bar. When in 1874
I met him in Albany to argue my first case in the Court of Appeals, then
presided over by that most urbane jurist. Judge Sanford E. Church, Mr.
Winfield carefully attired himself on the morning of the argument in a

THE BENCH AND BAR. 502

full-dress black suit with its broad expanse of shirt front, now used only
for evening wear, but regarded at that time as a suitable uniform for ap-
pearance before the highest court in the State ; just as, at a slightly earlier
period, Webster and Pinckney appeared before the Supreme Court at
Washington in blue coat and brass buttons, with buff waistcoat. How
different from the present when able lawyers in short sack coats of gray,
looking like commercial travelers, hasten from the Albany station to the
two o'clock sessions of the court without stopping to even remove the dust
of travel before launching into their keen and brilliant arguments.

When Judge Joseph F. Barnard, of Poughkeepsie, upon the transfer of
Judge Lott to the Court of Appeals in 1869, became the presiding judge of
the old general term, he became also the presiding genius, the dominating,
all-pervading spirit of the second judicial district. He was opposed to
any increase in the number of judges. With his insatiable voracity for
work and his preternatural velocity of thought, enabling him to accomplish
as much alone as the other three judges combined, he thought that four
judges ought to be fully able to keep up with all the business of the dis-
trict; as indeed they were if the administration of justice, involving the
most profound issues of human life and society, had been merely a matter
of getting the business out of the way, as on a wharf, to make room for
the next cargo.

The judges, fresh from their several circuit terms, met in the general
term and proceeded to hear appeals from the decisions made by themselves
at special and trial term. It was, indeed, an impressive, inspiring and
solemn spectacle to see Judge Tappen and Judge Gilbert gravely consider-
ing whether they would reverse Judge Barnard; and in the next case
Judge Tappen and Judge Barnard sitting upon Judge Gilbert. Of course
the tacit challenge, "You reverse me, I'll reverse you," pervaded all the
proceedings. Nothing else could be expected of human nature. It has
never been pretended that the State supplies lawyers with any superior,
exclusive brand of human nature when it gives them their diploma, and
judges are simply lawyers upon the bench. That an appellate system
should ever have been devised so exquisitely adapted to defeat its object
and destroy respect for its operations was hot, of course, the fault of the
judges of the second district.

When the general term sat in Poughkeepsie, as it did every May, to
accommodate Judge Barnard, the business was disposed of even more

503 THE COUNTY OF ORANGE.

rapidly than in Brooklyn, Judge Barnard greeting with delight any
lawyers who would appear at eight o'clock in the morning, both ready
to argue their appeal in advance of the regular session. The judges con-
stantly interrupted the attorneys to assure them that they could not possi-
bly remember what they said but that they would read their briefs. It was
of course true that no human mind could retain or even grasp the argu-
ments discharged at the court as from a catapult by attorneys gasping
for breath in the mad race against time.

Some amelioration of the intolerable conditions under which circuit
terms were held in Newburgh and Goshen was effected through the elec-
tion in 1870 of Judge Calvin E. Pratt, whose conservatism, affability and
dignity won for him universal respect. This improvement was extended
by the election in 1880 of Judge Edgar M. Cullen, whose high sense of
absolute fairness to all suitors alike led him to devote as much time and
thought to a case involving a trifling amount as to one involving large in-
terests ; though even he was merciless in his infliction of night sessions
upon the attorneys during the hot June term at Goshen, a course to which
he felt impelled because of his inability to remain longer than one week
and his desire to crowd as much work as possible into that wholly inade-
quate time.

The comfort and convenience of the Orange County bar and the in-
terests of litigants were served to a still greater degree by the election in
1882 of Judge Charles F. Brown. Though he could not extend the trial
terms beyond two weeks, on account of his assignments to other counties,
still he held a special term every Saturday at Newburgh where, by con-
sent of counsel, many cases were tried that otherwise would have been
tried before a jury, thus affording great relief to the overtaxed calendars
of the trial terms.

From that time to the present there has been a steady reaction against
feverishness and ferment as a suitable atmosphere for judicial proceedings
and a gradual return to calm, neutral, deliberate, dignified, decorous
methods of judicial procedure, until finally, for the first time, in the history
of the county, a four-weeks' term of court was held in February, 1907 ;
this being one of the first fruits of the formation of the ninth judicial
district, consisting of the river counties alone — a change which was op-
posed by some Orange County lawyers but which is now generally recog-
nized as, in the highest degree, conducive to the convenience and interests

THE BENCH AND BAR. 504

of the bar and of the public, though it does involve some additional
burdens upon jurors.

Forty years ago the familiar excuse made by judges for dispatching
business with unseemly haste was their solicitude for the time and con-
venience of the jurors. Indeed there never was a judge more popular
than Judge Barnard among jurors, witnesses, spectators and the public.
They admired the celerity of his movements and they were vastly enter-
tained by his caustic remarks to counsel. But his remarks about counsel
and witnesses during the progress of the trial were far more entertaining
and racy than any the public was permitted to hear. The favored persons
privileged to hear these were his associates upon the bench of the old
'Oyer and Terminer, since abolished and now merged in the Supreme
Court. They were drawn from the justices of the peace of the county and
with the presiding judge constituted the criminal branch of the court.
Squire George A. Durland, of the town of Greenville, who sat in this
capacity next to Judge Barnard at many terms of court, never tired of
telling about the trenchant, scathing, witty commentary kept up by the
judge upon every incident of the trial, the counsel engaged in it and the
witnesses sworn upon it.

During Judge Barnard's entire tenure of office the plea of not taking up
the time of the jurors was invoked to override every other consideration.
Not even death itself was superior to it or sacred from it. When Mr.
Winfield died on the tenth of June, 1888, and court convened at Goshen on
Monday, the eighteenth of June, Judge Cullen suspended the regular
business of the court at four o'clock to allow a suitable tribute to his
memory, including several addresses in addition to the resolutions. But
when Judge Gedney died, a month later, there was no opportunity to
take formal action upon his death at a trial term until the regular No-
vember term. Accordingly, when court convened at Newburgh the
twelfth of November an informal request was made to Judge Barnard for
an opportunity to pursue the same course in respect to Judge Gedney's
memory that had been adopted at Goshen in respect to Mr. Winfield.
Judge Barnard promptly and firmly refused to allow the time of the jurors
to be taken up in this way, adding: "Why, he's been dead some time,
hasn't he ?" So it became necessary to change the plan and to offer simply
a motion "that a committee be appointed to present at a meeting of the bar
of Orange County to be hereafter called suitable resolutions." That there

50S THE COUNTY OF ORANGE.

should be further delay in honoring the memory of this great lawyer and
brilliant advocate, after there had already been a necessary delay of four
months, is not a reproach that rests upon the bar of Orange County. As
the motion occupied only two minutes it was promptly granted and the
committee purposed to present the resolutions at the following term of
court to be held at Goshen in January, 1889, which was expected to be
presided over by Judge Brown. But when Judge Brown was transferred
to the Court of Appeals he became disqualified from holding the term and
Judge Barnard unexpectedly took his place. Admonished by previous ex-
perience no attempt was made to present the resolutions at that time or
to apply for permission to make addresses in honor of Judge John G.
Wilkin, who, also, had meantime died. So the tributes of the Orange
County bar to Judge Gedney, Judge Wilkin and Surrogate Henry A.
Wadsworth, whose death also had occurred, were massed together at a
meeting of the bar presided over by Judge Brown on Saturday, the second
day of February, 1889, seven months after the death of Judge Gedney,
without those customary adjuncts to the dignity of the occasion — the
crowded court room; the attendance of litigants, jurors and witnesses
from all parts of the county; the solemn pause in the business of the court;
the impressive silence ; the strained, eager attention of old friends in the
audience to the last tributes of respect for one they loved ; all of which
were not only appropriate but, indeed, imperative in honoring one who
had so often held that very court room silent, captive, enthralled by the
spell of his genius.

If Judge Gedney's brethren had felt, in the first instance, that a tribute
to his memory at a mere meeting of the bar would be appropriate and
adequate, it would not have been delayed seven months, as such a meeting
could have been called at any time after his death. That it was not so
called shows the strength of a sentiment which was ruthlessly trampled
upon by judicial contempt not merely for all the traditions of the bar but
for all the sacredness of love and death.

At the same time the bar always recognized with gratitude the earnest
desire on the part of Judge Barnard to transact all the business that he
could and to accommodate the bar as much as possible. It was this dis-
position that led to his constant signing of ex parte orders without looking
at them, trusting to the honor of the bar not to impose upon him and, also,
to a motion by the other side to vacate any improvident order. The

THE BENCH AND BAR. So6

lawyers, through long custom, so came to prefer this system that they
resented any departure from it by new judges who could not take this
view of their duties. When Judge Brown's transfer to the second division
of the Court of Appeals led to the Newburgh special terms being taken by
Judges Cullen and Bartlett, the bar practically boycotted them in favor
of Judge Barnard's Saturday term at Poughkeepsie, merely because both
Judge Cullen and Judge Bartlett manifested a very decided preference to
know what they were signing. Gradually, however, the lawyers learned
that this course was not intended as a reflection upon the bar, but as a
help to it, in preventing any such mistake or oversight as might lead after-
wards to serious consequences. Of this I once witnessed a striking illus-
tration. An attorney desired an order to examine a party before trial
in a case in which the examination of his adversary was absolutely essen-
tial to his success in the litigation. Judge Bartlett sent the affidavit back
to him three times for correction and the order was finally sustained in
the Court of Appeals because of the sufficiency of the affidavit. All this
involved to Judge Bartlett conscientious labor and minute examination
which he might well have shirked and which judges generally consider
counsel have no right to expect of them or to impose upon them.

Judge Barnard was the most conspicuous of all the judges in his anxiety
to save the lawyers the trouble of travel in order to transact their business.
He instructed the Orange County attorneys to mail to him an order desig-
nating a referee of their own choice, to compute the amount due in fore-
closure cases, with the report of the referee signed by him in anticipation
of his appointment, together with the judgment of foreclosure; where-
upon he signed at the same time both the order of reference and the judg-
ment of foreclosure, promptly mailing them back, although it was physi-
cally impossible that the referee should have acted in the interval between
his appointment and the judgment. This practice, which is now regarded
as irregular and which even the most accommodating judges now dis-
countenance, resulted in no harm, for it rested upon the most implicit
good faith on the part of the attorneys, while the confidence of the judge
was never, in a single instance, abused. An incident strongly illustrating
this trait of Judge Barnard also grew indirectly out of Judge Brown's
transfer to the Court of Appeals. Judgments of foreclosure in cases in
Sullivan County had usually been taken before Judge Brown at New-
burgh because, though in another judicial district, Orange County is an

507 THE COUNTY OF ORANGE.

adjoining county and this is permitted by the code. But soon after
Judge Brown left Newburgh an attorney, overlooking the fact that
Dutchess County does not adjoin Sullivan, sent the papers in a Sullivan
County foreclosure case to Judge Barnard to be signed by him on Satur-
day at Poughkeepsie. His eagle eye at once noticed that the action was
in Sullivan County and that he had no jurisdiction to act in the case in
Dutchess County. Any other judge would have returned the papers,
calling attention to the difficulty. But did this satisfy Judge Barnard?
Not at all. This would not have advanced the business. This would not
have "helped out the boys." So he struck out the word "Poughkeepsie"
in the order and judgment and in his own handwriting substituted the
word "Newburgh," thus making himself, by a legal fiction, sit in an
adjoining county for five minutes, for the purposes of that case, though
he was actually in Poughkeepsie all that day, and though he never held
a Saturday special term in Newburgh in all his life. Judge CuUen and
Judge Bartlett would have felt that they were inviting impeachment by
such an act, and yet Judge Barnard was moved solely by the desire to
facilitate the business of the attorneys in every possible way. To him an
irregularity meant nothing unless it meant also a wrong. But those days
have passed and have been succeeded by better days, in which it is recog-
nized by the courts and the lawyers alike that they should co-operate in
making even their routine practice so regular as to exclude any possibility
of error.

There will be no sigh in this retrospect over the better days of long ago,
no wail about the "good old times." The better days are now and the
good times have come at last. The new generation of lawyers now enter-
ing upon their active career has reason for gratification that the facilities
for the orderly, deliberate, tranquil trial and hearing of their causes, with
the prospect that even and exact justice will be rendered in them, are
greater to-day than at any previous period in the history of the county.
There never was so good an opportunity for a young, ambitious, able
advocate to win fame at the bar of Orange County as there is to-day.
While the subjects of litigation and the conditions of business have some-
what changed in the last fifty years, human nature has never changed.
Juries respond to-day as readily as then to the touch of a master spirit.
When jurors ask nowadays why they do not hear sufch speeches at court
as their fathers have told them about the answer generally given is that

THE BENCH AND BAR. 508

judges frown upon anything like display and hold the lawyers down to
business. The business of an advocate is to make a good speech and no
judge ever was able to stop a good speech. Let no young lawyer seek
indolent refuge in the pretext that the judges will not give him a chance.
Let him not, with difficulty, fold his restless pinions lest they be arrested
in their soaring flight by judicial insensibility. No, the reason that
forensic eloquence has so lamentably declined in Orange County lies not in
the hostility of judges, but in the absorption of lawyers themselves in
the merely material, sordid aspects of life, to the exclusion of any interest
in those liberal arts and erudite pursuits which alone can anoint the hesi-
tating lips with the honey of eloquent discourse. The field is clear for
another Winfield or Gedney.

It is the fashion to say that the influence of the bar has decUned — that
the legal profession, as a body, does not enjoy the same measure of pub-
lic respect which was paid to it in the early days of the republic, or exer-
cise now that ascendency over public opinion which once it exerted so
powerfully and so naturally. It is true, indeed, that coincidently with the
stealthy, sinister growth in the Northern States of the modern machine
methods of party management the lawyer has been gradually and inevit-
ably displaced as a leader of public opinion. It is only in the South that
the influence of the lawyer among the masses is still unshaken because
there the appeal of candidates is still made directly to the people who,
through their primaries and in other republican ways familar to the
fathers and founders of the nation, express their preference and give
effect to their choice.

But it is significant that, even in the North, whenever the people at
large resolve to destroy long-standing abuses or odious machines, as, at
stated intervals, they always proceed to do, they turn instinctively, as of
old, to the plain, simple, honest, busy, practicing lawyer. Among the
lawyers elected to the high office of governor of our State the three gov-
ernors whose homely, direct, straightforward methods have most capti-
vated the imagination and impressed the conscience of the passing gen-
eration are Tilden, Cleveland and Hughes, who simply brought to their
duties the habits, the instincts, the training and the ideals of the old-
fashioned country lawyer, whose first aim is always to protect the inter-
ests committed to his charge without any thought as to the effect of his
course upon his own interests, popularity or future. This training, this

509 THE COUNTY OF ORANGE.

tradition, this character of the true lawyer still happily survives " all
changes in political methods or party management and still constitutes
the highest security the people have for the faithful administration of
their laws, wholly unswerved by selfish, ulterior or sinister purposes.

At the time, now forty years ago, to which my memory of the Orange
County bar runs back, these honorable traditions were wholly maintained
by a bar, the members of which still enjoyed a high place in the public
esteem and exercised a profound influence upon public opinion, based
upon the dignity and importance of their profession as well as upon their
personal talents and character. The relations between the lawyers and
the farmers were particularly close, confidential and agreeable. The
soil was still largely occupied by men of character, education and intel-
ligence who freely sought the counsel and society of their friends among
the lawyers at whose offices and homes they were as cordially welcomed
on a social or political call as upon a professional visit. The reason that
the sons and successors of the lawyers of that day have, to some extent,
lost touch with the interests of the soil is that the farmers of that day
were not able to persuade their sons to become their successors. The
saddest change that has overtaken Orange County in the last forty years
is not in the character of its professional men, but in the character of its
farming population.

Identified with the period included in the personal recollections here
but partially preserved are several groups of fathers and sons who may
for .convenience be considered together; especially as a sufficiently con-
secutive view of the period has now been presented to admit, henceforth,
of greater latitude in respect to time and order.

Joseph W. Gott, senior, died in 1869 after twenty-seven years' con-
tinuous practice in Goshen, where he established the enviable reputation
throughout the county of being one of the most honorable and high-
minded men, as well as one of the most able and successful lawyers,
known to his generation. His premature and deeply regretted death
occurred before his only son could be admitted to practice.

Joseph W. Gott, Jr., was admitted in 1875 and since then, like his
father, has practiced continuously in Goshen. No higher praise can be
bestowed upon him than to say, that while he has, by his own vigorous
intellect and independent character, won for himself prominence at the
bar, he has never lost sight of the high ideals which animated his father.

THE BENCH AND BAR. 510

The general confidence in his supreme honor and integrity which he has
always enjoyed corresponds most touchingly to the confidence and re-
spect always inspired by his honored father. With him is now associated
in practice his own son, Percy Van Duzer Gott. These two are men-
tioned first in the group of fathers and sons because they are the only
lawyers in Orange County, thus associated, who constitute and represent
four generations of Orange County lawyers. For in them flows not only
the blood of the elder Gott, but the blood of the Van Duzers and the
Gedneys.

Isaac R. Van Duzer, who married in 1826 the older sister of Judge
Gedney — their daughter, Charlotte, being married to Joseph W. Gott in
1847 — was, undoubtedly, the most brilliant advocate, with the single ex-
ception of Ogden Hoffman, who ever addressed an Orange County jury.
All the accounts of contemporaries and all the traditions of the bar unite
in this verdict. Often have I heard Judge Wilkin, who as a boy heard
him in Goshen, expatiate upon his transcendent powers. He died pre-
maturely in his fortieth year, but the opinion entertained by his genera-
tion was that, had he lived, his name would have gone down to history
with the foremost orators of his age. Of their distinguished ancestry at
the bar of Orange County the Gotts may well be proud; for the junior
member in the present firm is now the fourth in a line of lawyers whose
practice and residence at Goshen have extended over a period of eighty-
five years — from 1823 to the present time.

John W. Brown was admitted to practice in 1822, just one year before
Mr. Van Duzer, to whom he was related, Judge Brown having married
a Reeve, which was the family name of Mr. Van Duzer's mother. It is
remarkable that if the practice of Judge Brown and of his own son,
Charles F. Brown, had not been interrupted by extended terms of judi-
cial service in the life of each — sixteen years in the life of the elder Brown
and fourteen years in the life of the younger — the continuous practice of
the two Browns would now cover a period of eighty-six years. As it is,
their contributions in two generations to the jurisprudence of the State,
at the bar and on the bench, cover a longer period than that embraced in
the careers of any father and son associated with the legal annals of
Orange County. I say still associated because, although Judge Charles
F. Brown is now one of the two or three acknowledged leaders of the bar
of the State, with his office in New York City, where his practice is

511 THE COUNTY OF ORANGE.

largely in the Appellate Courts, he still retains his residence in Orange
County and a nominal connection with the firm established in Newburgh
by his former partner, Mr. Cassedy.

His own career has already been sufficiently treated in its appropriate
place in this commentary. It only remains to add that his life-long
veneration for his father's memory and his consistent emulation of his
father's example supply an element of interest to his career and of
filial tenderness to his character not appreciated by the thousands of his
admirers, among the judges and lawyers of the country, who know him
only through the cold medium of his published judicial opinions.

Judge John W. Brown was undoubtedly a great man. Serving two
terms in Congress from 1833 to 1837; a prominent member of the
Constitutional Convention of 1846; elected in 1849 to the Supreme Court
and again in 1857, his life was one of unceasing activity, influence and
power. His greatness as a judge may be inferred from the remarkable
circumstance that no decision made by him was ever reversed by the
Court of Appeals, of which court he was himself a member, under the
system then prevailing, during the last years of his successive terms as
a judge of the Supreme Court.

It is not strange that one who was born to the heritage of such a name
should have sought to add, as indeed he has added, to its luster in a suc-
ceeding generation.

It was while Charles F. Brown was district attorney of Orange County
that John W. Lyon became an official of the county through his appoint-
ment to the office of assistant district attorney. The career of the Lyons,
father and son, now covers a practice of sixty-one years in Port Jervis,
the longest period of continuous practice at the bar carried over from
father to son, in Orange County.

Thomas J. Lyon, or, as his friends affectionately preferred to call him,
Tom Lyon, was a man of great native talent and marked originality.
Beginning life as a Methodist preacher, but coming to prefer the more
extended opportunities for usefulness afforded by the law, his fame in
the fifties soon spread from the Delaware to the Hudson. Throwing
himself with ardor into the exciting political contests which marked this
period, he was in constant demand as a campaign speaker and his poli-
tical services were recognized by a lucrative appointment under the
administration of" President Franklin Pierce. Twice elected to the As-

THE BENCH AND BAR. 512

sembly and once a candidate of his party for the Senate, his abilities
always received the cordial recognition of the public with whom he kept
constantly on good terms. The announcement that he was to speak at a
political gathering was always sure to attract a large attendance of ad-
herents of the opposite party for they knew they would be entertained
by his sallies though they might not be seduced by his arguments.

His control over juries was due to a mingling of magnetism and
humor. He could touch the chord of sentiment and the response was
immediate. He could cover his opponent with ridicule and the result
was contagious and convulsive laughter. No weapon is more powerful
at any time than gentle banter and no one knew better how to employ its
arts to the discomfiture of an adversary than Thomas J. Lyon.

His son, John W., inherits his ability and much of his originality.
He, too, has always taken a deep interest in politics and he has been
heard on the platform in every campaign since 1872.

He was the pioneer of the bar in that branch of the practice which
has since assumed such proportions, railway htigation. He was the first
to carry to the Court of Appeals many important questions, relating to
the liability of the master for injury to the employee, which were settled
by that court in favor of the positions contended for by him.

A most interesting feature in the genealogy of the profession is the
fact that the daughter of John W. Lyon, Frances D. Lyon, is also a
lawyer duly admitted to practice, having supplemented her studies in her
father's office by a course at the Cornell Law School from which she
graduated with honor, subsequently passing her examinations before the
State Board. She is now engaged in practice with her father, to whom
her aid is invaluable in the office, while she has also shown marked ability
in her appearances at court.

Thus we have in the Lyons the only family in Orange County, except
the Gott family, in which there have been three successive generations
of lawyers bearing the same name.

Eugene A. Brewster and George R. Brewster cover a period of sixty
years' continuous practice, the elder Brewster having been admitted in
1848. The judgment of his associates, placing Eugene A. Brewster in
the front rank of the lawyers of his time, has already been expressed.
Upon his death his son, George R., succeeded to his practice in the same
office to which for so many years the friends of his father were accus-

513 THE COUNTY OF ORANGE.

tomed to bend their steps and where they never received any but the
most wise and judicious counsel. George R. Brewster inherits the sound
judgment and conservative instincts of his father and well maintains the
dignity and responsibilites of his honorable name and lineage. His public
spirit and devotion to every worthy cause are among the most conspicuous
of his traits of character. Possessed of ample means and under no spur
of necessity he gives freely to the public all the time he can spare from a
practice which has been attended with great success, one of the most no-
table of his recent legal victories having been gained in restraining the
building of a railroad across his client's property.

His sense of civic duty has been strikingly exemplified in the consci-
entious performance of his duties as supervisor, though his acceptance of
the office involved great inconvenience and sacrifice. His labors in be-
half of St. Luke's Hospital have been of inestimable value to that noble
benefaction.

In a community as conservative as Newburgh, where one minister is
still acceptably serving his congregation for the fifty-second year and
another for the thirty-fifth, it counts for something, and very properly
so, that a man should be the son and successor of an honored, respected
father. When Mr. Brewster died his son was made a director of the
Newburgh Bank in his father's place and when Abram S. Cassedy died
the same course was taken in the Quassaick Bank in respect to his son,
William F. Cassedy.

The Cassedys, father and son, cover a period of fifty-one years' con-
tinuous practice, the elder Cassedy having been admitted in 1857. The
high place gained by him in the esteem of the bar and in the confidence
of the public has already been set forth at length. This confidence has
been transferred to his son, William F. Cassedy, to a degree almost un-
precedented in the career of a young practitioner but in every sense justi-
fied by his high character and brilliant talents. Mr. Cassedy has during
the last few years managed and represented estates of as great magnitude
as the estates represented by all the other lawyers of Orange County
combined. He has a special talent for this important branch of the prac-
tice, but, like his father, can drop his papers and go to court with his
case well prepared for trial. The ability with which he uniformly presents-
it to a jury is well reenforced by the same winning manner and pleasing
personality which has endeared him to so many friends.

THE BENCH AND BAR. 514

When Judge Charles F. Brown was in 1883 elevated to the bench
of the Supreme Court, the firm of Cassedy & Brown, of which Abram S.
Cassedy was then the senior member, was, of course, dissolved. When
Judge Brown retired from the bench in 1897, Mr. Cassedy having mean-
time died, the names became transposed, the firm of Brown & Cassedy
then formed, and still continuing, being composed of Judge Brown and
William F. Cassedy. That this association of his name with that of
his old partner's son should be pleasing to Judge Brown is a distinguished
mark of that great jurist's confidence, esteem and affection which in-
deed, are shared by all, bar and public alike, who come to know the pure
and lofty character of William F. Cassedy.

William B. Royce who with his son, Herbert B. Royce, is engaged in
practice in Middletown, was admitted forty years ago, but being per-
suaded, while in the full tide of active practice, to accept the position of
president of the First National Bank in 1875, his career as a lawyer was
interrupted for seventeen years. Resigning this position, however, at
the end of this period, he soon recovered his scattered practice and upon
the admission to the bar of his son the firm of William B. and Herbert
B. Royce was formed. This continued until the autumn of 1906 when,
John C. R. Taylor, having been elected to the Senate, the firm of Taylor,
Royce & Royce was formed.

Mr. Royce has greater capacity for public business than any lawyer
who ever practiced at the bar in Orange County. His mind grasps
readily, his tastes run naturally to, every phase and variety of town,
county and municipal relations, improvements and enterprises, with all
the important questions involved in them in respect to the proper dis-
tribution of public burdens. He is an authority upon corporation law
in respect both to the organization and management of corporations.
His power of clear statement, in respect to any involved or intricate
situation, is very great.

There is one characteristic of Mr. Royce which is fully appreciated
only by those who have been in a position to see its frequent effective
exercise. He loves to settle disputes among neighbors and litigants.
He has genuine talent for making each party see how it would benefit
him to make some concession and even greater tact in pointing out how
certain concessions necessary to the settlement will still leave the pride
and dignity of the parties uncompromised. He absolutely has never

515 THE COUNTY OF ORANGE.

failed in bringing about an agreement which he started out to compass.
Sometimes, indeed, the perverseness of the parties has seemed to make
the difficulties insuperable, but this has only spurred him on to renewed
exertions. Those who know how unprofitable and unwise for both
parties is any litigation which can possibly be avoided and, especially, any
litigation representing only an honest difference of opinion, will realize
the indebtedness of the public to Mr. Royce for those unselfish exer-
tions and that salutary influence which, throughout his entire profes-
sional career, have been steadily, consistently and successfully directed to
the promotion of peace and the soothing of angry controversy.

His son, Herbert B. Royce, who enjoyed the advantages of both
the classical and law course at Cornell University, was launched from
the first into the activities of a busy office. Having been elected special
county judge he has enjoyed an opportunity, in presiding over the trial
terms of the County Court, to impress his abilities upon the bar and
the public to a degree and in a manner never before enjoyed by a special
county judge in the entire history of the county. Before Judge Seattle's
time the county judges were never very considerate to the special county
judges. They regarded them as officers provided merely for the con-
venience of the bar in signing orders and they affected to think that
there might be some serious question of jurisdiction involved in their
trying and sentencing criminals. Even Judge Hirschberg and Judge
Beattie were never invited, as special county judges, to hold a term of
court, but the judges, when they could not act themselves, always brought
in a county judge of a neighboring county. Judge Beattie acted more
generously to his official coadjutor and when it became necessary for him
to surrender two terms of court, Judge Royce was requested to hold
them. This service was performed by him with such marked ability,
and so greatly to the satisfaction of the entire bar and public, that Judge
Seeger, who succeeded Judge Beattie in 1907, and who was disqualified
from sitting in any cases in which he, as district attorney, had procured
the indictments, again summoned Judge Royce to the bench, when again,
he was enabled to give a public demonstration of his judicial fitness and
capacity and to prove that it will never be necessary to call in a judge from
a neighboring county as long as Judge Royce remains special county
judge.

Finn & Finn is the name of the firm of which Daniel Finn was the

THE BENCH AND BAR. Si6

senior member until it was ruthlessly dissolved by the untimely hand
of death, which overtook him without warning in the very midst of an
unusually active and prosperous career. Admitted to the bar in 1870 he
began and, for thirty-five years continued his practice in Middletown,
becoming one of the most respected and influential of its citizens as well
as one of the ablest and most trusted of its bar. He was especially
versed in the law of wills. Nothing appealed more strongly to his in-
terest than the ambiguous provisions of a will and the difficult questions
raised as to their proper construction. His opinions upon these were
often submitted to the court with the result that his judgment was in-
variably sustained.

He was the most imperturbable of men. Nothing agitated or even
ruffled him. He could lay down his pen to engage in an interview with
some irascible client and, after it was over, calmly resume work upon his
thoughtful brief at the very point at which it had been interrupted.
This faculty, the result of training as well as of temperament, enabled
him to accomplish a great deal of work. The day was never spoiled for
him by some untoward incident, unpleasant letter or peevish client. Each
day marked distinct progress in some appointed task.

Mr. Finn, who drew the will of Mrs. Thrall, was deeply interested in
the noble institutions founded by her — the hospital and the library in
addition to the park — and it was largely through his influence that her
thoughts were directed to these beneficent objects. It was also through
his careful prevision that her testamentary wishes in respect to an addi-
tional endowment for the hospital were not defeated by statutory pre-
cautions. Mr. Finn foresaw that she might die within the two months
set apart, arbitrarily and without respect to testamentary capacity, by
the inscrutable wisdom of the legislature as the fluctuating hiatus, that
may or may not turn out to be the vitiated period, within which testa-
mentary benevolence must be suspended ; within which all tardy attempts
of the passing soul to make its peace with God or restitution to man-
kind must be overruled and nullified in favor of worthless or distant
relatives; but still within the last day of which the cunning physician
seeking to cheat death of its prey and rapacity of its spoils, might so
galvanize into convulsive life the dissolving frame, might so fan into
flickering flame the vital spark that, in the race between greedy kindred
and melting charity, rapacity will lose by a single hour. In the case of

517 THE COUNTY OF ORANGE.

Mrs. Thrall there was no such dramatic suspense. She died twenty
days after the execution of her will; so that the bequests in her will
and codicil of twenty thousand dollars to Thrall Hospital, already
founded by her, were declared void. But Mr. Finn also advised her
to give to her executors, Isaac R. Clements and Nathan M. Hallock, in-
dividually, absolutely and outright all legacies which might for any rea-
son be declared void or ineffectual, and this provision was incorporated
in her codicil. After this provision had withstood in the courts the at-
tacks of relatives who claimed that it represented a secret trust, equally
as abhorrent to legislative solicitude for relatives as a direct charitable
bequest, Mr. Clements and Mr. Hallock, in honorable recognition of Mrs.
Thrall's wishes, as expressed in her defeated bequests, but under no legal
compulsion so to do, turned over to Thrall Hospital the twenty thousand
dollars which came to them absolutely under this alternative provision.
Thus were Mr. Finn's wisdom and foresight, not only in respect to his
client's provision for the hospital but in respect to her bequest to the
city of Middletown for its library, amply justified by the event. The be-
quest of $30,000, for the library was sustained by the courts. These
noble foundations — the library and the hospital — constitute an enduring
monument to the generosity of S. Maretta Thrall but are no less a monu-
ment to the learning, skill and prescience of Daniel Finn. The people of
Middletown, though they have always recognized his virtues and his
abilities, but imperfectly understand the full measure and extent of
their indebtedness to his guiding hand and public spirit. It is simple
justice to his memory that the incidents of his professional career bear-
ing upon the public welfare should be embraced in any work professing
to be history.

Mr. Finn's intense affection for and loyalty to his alma mater, Hamil-
ton College, was a very pronounced and interesting trait of his character.
His only son, Frank H. Finn, also graduated from this classic institution
of learning which numbers among its alumni that most intellectual of
all living American statesmen, Elihu Root.

Frank H. Finn, upon being admitted to practice, entered into partner-
ship with his father under the firm name of Finn & Finn — the name under
which, notwithstanding his father's death, he and his present partner, Ar-
thur H. Payne, himself also a graduate of Hamilton College, conduct
their business. Every writ and process issued by the present firm runs in

THE BENCH AND BAR. Si8

the name of Finn & Finn, thus perpetuating the potent influence, the fine
example and the gentle memory of one of the purest and ablest of Orange
County lawyers. It is unusual among lawyers to preserve the name, in
a firm, of a deceased partner. The only instance I recall is that of James
C. Carter, whose surviving partner, Lewis Cass Ledyard, has always, with
a tenderness and delicacy of sentiment so in consonance with his own noble
nature and chivalric character, kept Mr. Carter's name at the head of his
firm, through all ensuing changes. The filial reverence shown by Frank
H. Finn for his father's memory, his unwillingness to let his father's name
disappear at once beneath the cold waters of swift forgetfulness, illumi-
nates his own strong and sterling character. Called upon suddenly to as-
sume charge of many intricate and involved cases pending in the office at
the time of his father's death he accepted and discharged the painful re-
sponsibility with a dignity, firmness, manliness, courage and ability which
commanded the admiration and won the affection of the community.
Though he owes much indeed to his noble father, he has given abundant
evidence of his capacity to stand alone. He and his brilliant partner, Mr.
Payne, will bring no reproach upon the honored name still in their pious
keeping.

Henry W. Wiggins came to the bar two years later than Daniel Finn.
The business established by him in Middletown in 1872 is now carried on
by the firm of Henry W. & Russell Wiggins, father and son.

Henry W. Wiggins is especially distinguished for his knowledge of the
law of real estate, but his practice has- always covered a wide range. I well
remember an important litigation between mill owners in which Mr. Wig-
gins established the right of the upper owner to substitute a turbine for
an overshot wheel and to take water at a lower depth, provided he did
not use a greater quantity of water than before. His success was the
more notable and gratifying because he was opposed by both Mr. Brewster
and Mr. Winfield. But it has been in litigations involving the liability of
the city of Middletown for damages that Mr. Wiggins has won many of
his most conspicuous triumphs. He was, at intervals, its corporation
counsel for many years, his son Russell now holding the position. It is
safe to say that no city was ever more ably served and carefully protected
than the city of Middletown was by Mr. Wiggins. No expensive con-
demnation proceeding in his charge ever proved ineffective because of
some flaw or oversight. No suit for damages defended by him ever ter-

519 THE COUNTY OF ORANGE.

minated in an extreme or excessive verdict. His caution, vigilance and
conscientiousness combined with his sturdy independence in always stand-
ing his ground, in always adhering inflexibly to any position once, after
due consideration, taken by him, have been of incalculable service to his
clientage and have resulted in saving to the city of Middletown alone many
thousands of dollars.

Russell Wiggins also has enjoyed marked success in defending the in-
terests of the city. His recent victory in a case involving the validity
of the provision in the charter of the city of Middletown making notice
to the common council of snow or ice upon a sidewalk prerequisite to an
action for injuries sustained in consequence of it, has attracted wide
attention. Mr. Wiggins was overruled by the special term and by the ap-
pellate division which held that this provision exceeded the powers of the
legislature and was, therefore, unconstitutional. But Mr. Wiggins suc-
ceeded in convincing the Court of Appeals, which, in an opinion embody-
ing the arguments advanced by him, sustained the validity of this pro-
vision of the charter, with the result that all actions of this class are prac-
tically done away with. It is not surprising that all the cities of the State
have been so impressed with the importance of Mr. Wiggins' victory that
they are now trying to secure a similar provision in their own charters.
It seems, indeed, somewhat hard that a total stranger, alighting from a
train on a dark night, should be compelled to proceed at his peril along a
city street, under conditions which physically exclude his either having or
giving notice, but Mr. Wiggins ingeniously persuaded the Court of Ap-
peals to say that this is a question for the legislature and not for the courts,
thus establishing a new precedent, if not a new principle, in constitutional
construction, in a case sure to become a leading one ; sure to be cited for
many years to come, in the courts of the entire country. In thus linking
his name at the very outset of his career, to a leading authority, Mr.
Wiggins has set for himself a hard task. He must now live up to his
own reputation — which there is abundant reason to believe he is entirely
able to do.

Cornelius E. Cuddeback, admitted to the bar in 1873, immediately
established in Port Jervis the business now carried on under the firm
name of C. E. & S. M. Cuddeback, his son Samuel M. having become
associated with him.

Mr. Cuddeback early became prominent in all the interests of the

THE BENCH AND BAR. 520

community, social, business, legal and public — a position which he main-
tains by virtue of his unquestioned integrity, great ability and enormous
industry. He was largely instrumental in straightening out the affairs
of the Port Jervis & Monticello Railroad Company, and he has for many
years been the attorney for the town of Deer Park and the village (now
the city) of Port Jervis. He has also been the attorney for many public
service corporations. His defense of the Barrett Bridge Company in a
test case tried at Goshen in June, 1905, to determine the liability of the
company for the deaths occasioned by the sweeping away of the bridge
over the Delaware River in a freshet, furnishes a fine example of his
characteristics as a lawyer. The defense was prepared with a thorough-
ness, exhaustiveness and comprehensiveness and conducted with a verve,
vigor and vivacity which carried everything before it, sweeping away the
case of the plaintiff as ruthlessly as the freshet swept away the bridge ;
leaving little for the jury to do but to register the fact that the defence
had been completely successful.

Mr. Cuddeback finds in his son a lawyer well qualified to assume the
burdens of his practice when he shall be prepared to lay them down.

All the living lawyers thus far considered, except the sons and daugh-
ter, will very soon be passing from the scene. The pages that bear this
imprint will scarcely be flung from the press before the lawyers whose
now familiar names they carry forward to a generation that knows them .
not, will drop away, one by one, from their accustomed places. So true
is this, so strong is the author's sense that only, by slight anticipation, do
these pages commemorate the departed, that nothing has been set down
here which could not be truthfully and becomingly said if they had gone
before who yet, for a little, linger. This, indeed, suggests the chief
reason why the present record, to be of any value, should include the
living; for long before this publication is superseded by a rival or a suc-
cessor the figures it portrays will have passed from action to remem-
brance.

In connection with this thought it is proper to point out that the
sketches and estimates now published bear this further resemblance to
veracious and posthumous biography — they have not been edited by the
subjects. The system adopted in some modern compilations of permit-
ting prominent men to write their own biographies, or of procuring from
them the data for less sympathetic treatment, has not been followed

521 THE COUNTY OF ORANGE.

here. Indeed, with a single accidental and insignificant exception, not
one lawyer has any knowledge of the scope or purpose of this under-
taking or has furnished any information available for use in it. He who
carelessly takes up this volume to read about others will be covered with
modest confusion to find himself included in it. This is an attempt not
to let a man speak for himself, but to collect and crystallize in definite
forms of expression the floating particles of contemporary judgment
upon his character. It is for this reason, besides others, that so few
specific dates and irrelevant facts are given. They have not been asked
for. They are not needed. They do not fit with the scheme of this work,
which aims, perhaps presumptuously, but still consistently, to be a gal-
lery of portraits, not a table of statistics. Of what possible interest is it
to know the number of a lawyer's children, or the building in which his
office is located ? Character and achievement are the things that count.

It will be convenient at this point to return to the consideration of the
leading advocates now at the bar of the county. No one recognizes more
than advocates themselves their frequent indebtedness to the great!
lawyers who, undisturbed by absorbing, distracting and exhausting trials,
apply to life's complex and varying conditions the immutable principles
of the common law. It implies no disparagement of Winfield and Gedney
to assume that the one often leaned upon the judgment of his partner,
William F. Sharpe, and that the other often sought the wise counsel of
his esteemed relative, Joseph W. Gott. At the same time it cannot be
doubted that public interest has always centered upon the trial lawyer,
for the obvious reason that the open field, the public challenge, the com-
bat of intellectual athletes, the palm of victory appeal strongly to the
imagination and dramatic sense. There need, therefore, be no apology
for making prominent in a popular work those who engage the larger
share of merely popular interest.

There is no man at the bar of Orange County, or indeed anywhere,
for whom the term .colorless would be so inept as it would be for Judge
Albert H. F. Seeger. He radiates color. He is the incarnation of sun-
shine. He is the forerunner of gladness, sounding a proclamation of
hope and good cheer wherever he goes. No one would suppose that he
ever had a care or sorrow. Yet he must have had his share. He per-
forms more perfectly than any man I ever knew that mission which
Robert Louis Stevenson glorifies when he says:

THE BENCH AND BAR. 522

"There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy.
A happy man or woman is a better thing to find than a five-pound note.
He or she is a radiating focus of good will; and their entrance into a
room is as thpugh another candle had been lighted. We need not care
whether they could prove the forty-seventh proposition ; they do a better
thing than that, they practically demonstrate the great theorem of the
liveableness of life."

But Judge Seeger can alsa prove the forty-seventh proposition. He
can usually prove anything he sets out to prove, as lawyers opposed to
him have often found to their dismay. And even when the law and the
facts are all against him and you have him thoroughly beaten, according
to all the rules of the game, there will still be three to six jurors who
strangely refuse to believe that anything but infallible argument could
emanate from a personality so radiant. Not that his propositions always
need the support of his personality, upon which, indeed, he never con-
sciously presumes. He always builds up a strong, solid, telling, con-
vincing argument, delivered with unaffected earnestness and artless sin-
cerity.

And his sincerity really is artless. While he is personally the most
popular man in Orange County and while such pre-eminence can only
be attained by the use of popular arts, yet in his case they are entirely
legitimate and unstudied. He really does feel kindness when he seems
to. He really is interested in the things which interest others. He really
does love their babies, their dogs, their horses — anything, in fact, but
their automobiles. His bubbling spirits and effervescent mirth, his ready
wit and sparkling sally, the ring of his laughter and the spell of his
bonhomie are all the genuine expression of a rich, ardent and impression-
able nature.

It might be thought that such a man would be a time-server. Far from
it. There is not a trace of the demagogue in his composition. Much as
he would naturally desire to retain his remarkable popularity he would
fling it all away, if necessary, in the performance of his duty or in the de-
fense of law and order. He showed this unmistakably when as district
attorney he boldly held at bay the lawless mob, at a personal risk which
his official duties did not call upon him to incur. Knowing then that he
would soon be a candidate for a higher office he cared not whether he
made friends or enemies, whether he lost votes or gained them; he

523 THE COUNTY OF ORANGE.

simply saw his duty and went straight for it. As it was, the very forces
he antagonized respected him. When this genial friend, this blithe com-
panion became transformed into the stern, unyielding, inexorable officer
of the law the very mob he awed retired to worship him, and when the
time came it voted for him.

This mingling in Judge Seeger's character of the sterner and softer
elements, of courage and tenderness, manliness and simplicity, firmness
and forgiveness, has inspired in the people of Orange County a respect
and affection such as rarely attiends upon a public man. His election
to the office of county judge was inevitable whether the "organization"
had been friendly or not. If it constitutes high qualifications for this
responsible position to possess a character noble and sincere, a disposition
just and fair, a judgment sound and true, a mind well trained and in-
formed, a knowledge of the law wide and various, a knowledge of human
nature keen and close, a sense of public duty deep and earnest, then is the
county of Orange indeed fortunate that a judge as respected as John J.
Beattie should be followed by a successor so worthy as Albert H. F.
Seeger.

From painting to stenography ; from stenography to the law ; from the
law to the recovery of a judgment for eight hundred thousand dollars in
1906 — that is the condensed history of Thomas Watts. As the painting
was, not of pictures but, of houses, it will readily be seen that he is the
most consummate embodiment of that familiar phrase, the self-made man,
that the Orange County bar possesses. After working all day painting,
often walking back several miles to his home, he spent his evenings study-
ing stenography. After acquiring this art and while pursuing its prac-
tice as a court stenographer he studied law assiduously, following care-
fully also the course of every case that came under his notice in court and
drawing out the able judges and lawyers whom he met in conversation
that was not less instructive than edifying.

Born in England, about the same time that Judge Seeger was born in
Germany, and brought to this country at an early age by his parents, as
Judge Seeger was also, the career of both men is a striking illustration
of what may be accomplished in this land of opportunity, without the
social influence of generations of local ancestry, by sheer pluck, persever-
ance, energy and ability.

Mr. Watts is a very nucleus of abounding and snperabounding energy.

THE BENCH AND BAR. 524

He generates energy by a process of spontaneous mental combustion. His
mental activity is more continuous and intense than any I have ever
known. His mind never goes fallowr, but seems to be constantly fructified
by the floating pollen in the business, legal or intellectual atmosphere sur-
rounding him. It is of course inevitable that, with such a temperament,
he should repeatedly cross the path of people who would like to have him
keep out of their way. But Mr. Watts is so constituted that where other
people are there would he be also ; and he is always willing to keep out
of their way by letting them step aside.

Yet, despite all his initiative, aggressiveness and combativeness with
respect to those who can meet him upon equal terms, he is tenderness and
generosity itself to the weak, the helpless and the dependent. He has been
known to pour out his bounty for years upon those who appealed to his
sympathy or invoked his aid. He has, in a marked degree, the English
love of fair play and is as ready to acknowledge a mistake as he is to
resent an injury. Often brusque and impulsive in hi? manner when no
offence is intended, and quick to regret when it is, he is always surprised
to find that others are not so ready to forget as he is to forgive.

The fighting qualities of Mr. Watts are never shown to better advan-
tage than when he is asserting the rights of the poor and weak against all
the resources of corporate or individual wealth. He never tires. His
tenacity cannot be shaken. No reversal of the first judgment dismays
him. He enters upon the second or third trial with as much vigor and
vim as upon the first. In one case he more than doubled upon the second
trial the verdict obtained upon the first trial. Indeed he has led in the
securing of large verdicts, having obtained the largest verdict in a death
case ever rendered in the county and the largest verdict, with one excep-
tion, ever rendered for personal injuries.

The judgment for eight hundred thousand dollars to which reference
has been made was obtained by Mr. Watts in an action brought by him
for a contractor against a railroad company for extra work in the building
of a branch, disputed by the company. Mr. Watts examined and cross-
examined all the witnesses and, with the aid of his office force, prepared
the final argument. He was opposed by the finest legal talent in the State
and the case was tried before that learned, eminent and profoundly re-
spected judge, the Honorable Alton B. Parker, sitting as referee. The case
involved many intricate questions of which Mr. Watts exhibited entire

525 THE COUNTY OF ORANGE.

mastery. His management of this case marks the zenith of his ability and
reputation as a trial lawyer. A lawyer who, before such a tribunal, wins
such a case, involving such large interests and attended with results of
such magnitude, for the judgment was not only obtained but settled, has
established his place, beyond all question, in the very front rank of the
trial lawyers of the State.

Mr. Watts excels in cross-examination. In a case brought by him for
injuries resulting from the explosion of a locomotive boiler, the judge
hesitated at the close of his case about letting it proceed, but finally ruled
that the railroad company should go on with its proof, reserving the
questions that troubled him. Mr. Watts thereupon took the defendant's
witnesses in hand and on cross-examination he so completely established
the liability of the company out of the mouths of its own witnesses that
all thought, not merely of nonsuit, but of defense even was abandoned
and the company was thrown into a panic. It made an offer in the
recess and when the court convened again to resume the case it was
announced as settled.

Mr. Watts' addresses to the jury are marked by pith, point and
piquancy. He emphasizes the salient features of the case and lets all
minor or subordinate issues take care of themselves. His sturdy defense
of his client's rights, his strong individuality and his intellectual force
combine to make him a formidable opponent.

Perhaps no lawyer at the bar of Orange County ever received a more
emphatic, pronounced, unmistakable tribute of personal regard than John
C. R. Taylor, of Middletown, received at the election of 1906, when, in
a district opposed to him politically, he ran over four thousand ahead of
his ticket and was elected Senator by a majority of over twelve hundred.
The good opinion of him thus expressed by his fellow citizens has been
confirmed by his broad, patriotic, statesmanlike course at Albany, which
has attracted the attention and commended him to the approbation, of
the entire State, without respect to party lines. The purity of his
character, the singleness of his motives, the soundness of his judg-
ment and the independence of his action carried him in a single session
to a position of weight and influence usually acquired only after several
terms of legislative service. Senator Taylor is one of those public
servants who believe that the State is a great business corporation of
which the Governor is president and each Senator a trustee. Under this

THE BENCH AND BAR. 526

•conviction he refuses to consider either party advantage or private inter-
ests but seeks to asceFtain solely what is best for the welfare of the
people and the cause of good government. Whether he can repeat his
phenomenal success at the polls under less favorable conditions is of
course uncertain. But whether he does or not he has set an example
of clean, straightforward, high-minded methods in politics and legislation
which will long be remembered in his district. He has set a standard
of political morals which will have to be satisfied by any successor who
hopes to retain the mandate of a now aroused, vigilant, exacting and
independent public conscience.

Senator Taylor's success at the bar was almost as immediate as his
later success in the Senate. Early in his practice he went to Kingston
to try a case against one of the leaders of the famous Ulster County bar
and obtained a verdict of $10,000 in an action against the town of Shaw-
angunk for damages resulting from a defective bridge, a verdict which
was subsequently paid after passing the ordeal of all the courts. Judge
Clearwater who presided over the trial and whose qualifications as a
critic will be conceded, since he has himself made both the bar and bench
illustrious, told me that he had never seen a case more ably tried and
presented than this case was by Mr. Taylor.

Senator Taylor has the courage of the true lawyer. When a few
years ago he was engaged to defend a client accused of a shocking
offense, people went to him and said, "Why, you will be ruined if you
defend that man." He simply replied, "He is my client and I shall stand
by him to the end." Senator Taylor not only was not "ruined" but he
completely reversed public sentiment which had been misled from the
start, and established his client's entire innocence of the charge against
him in a crushing cross-examination of the first witness which demon-
strated its complete falsity.

Senator Taylor's professional ideals are as high as his political ideals.
He is an honorable foe, a straight lawyer, a cultured gentleman.

Michael N. Kane, of Warwick, the most beautiful village in the county,
if not in the State, also received at the election of 1906 a vote for the
office of supreme court judge which strikingly attested the admiration and
regard in which he is held by his fellow citizens in the county and district.
He ran several thousand ahead of his ticket but this was not sufficient to
overcome the adverse majority caused by the creation of the new ninth

527 THE COUNTY OF ORANGE.

judicial district out of the river counties. Mr. Kane has securely estab-
lished his reputation as a trial lawyer of conspicuous ability and success.
He is frequently employed as counsel in important cases and has never
failed to satisfy the expectations of both attorney and client. His prepa-
ration of cases for trial is complete and masterly.

In the appellate courts his arguments are marked by a learning, lucidity
and power which always command attention and usually assent.

The breadth of character and fineness of moral fibre which have con-
tributed so largely to his professional success are displayed in all his
relations to his professional brethren, in which he is the pattern and
exemplar of uniform courtesy, consideration and indulgence. While
never imperiling the interests of a client to accommodate a professional
brother he is always able to find a way to accommodate him without in-
juring his client. He never takes refuge in the transparent pretext that
his client will not consent, which is the customary formula used to cover,
though it does not conceal, professional churlishness. In the very cases
in which Mr. Kane has been most generous to his opponents he has had
the most complete ultimate success; thus furnishing to his brethren of
the bar an object lesson from which they may learn that courtesy to each
other is entirely consistent with perfect loyalty to their client.

Mr. Kane's public spirit has always been a noticeable phase of his
character. His pride in and devotion to the interests of Warwick have
endeared him to his community which not only respects him as a lawyer
but esteems him as a neighbor and honors him as a citizen.

Ferdinand V. Sanford is another citizen of Warwick whose abilities en-
title him to rank among the trial lawyers of the county. Fluent in speech,
cultivated in manner and refined in character, his personal charm imparts
weight to his opinion and impulsion to his utterances. He, too, is deeply
interested in his beautiful village, the citizens of which have bestowed
upon him many marks of their favor and confidence. His prominence
in its affairs led to a most interesting experience in the summer of 1906
when he represented his village at the brilliant and imposing pageant held
by old Warwick in England at which he upheld the reputation abroad of
American oratory in a most graceful, felicitous and eloquent address.

Darwin W. Esmond, of Newburgh, prepares his cases for trial more
thoroughly than any lawyer I ever knew. His trial brief is comprehen-
sive, elaborate and minute, even containing instructions in reference to

THE BENCH AND BAR. 528

the cross-examination of the witnesses expected to be called by his op-
ponent. Every case likely to be cited by his opponent is discussed and
distinguished. Every pitfall into which his opponent might seek to draw
him is pointed out and provided against. If he should die the day before
a case is set down for trial and it should be thought best, notwithstanding,
to go on with the trial, any experienced trial lawyer could, on a moment's
notice, take his brief and try the case without consulting an authority,
seeing a witness, or even talking with the client. He would find his open-
ing to the jury outlined for him, the statements of the witnesses ar-
ranged in the order in which they should be adduced, the authorities
bearing upon a motion for nonsuit carefully analyzed and, finally, the
points to be dwelt upon in the submission to the jury clearly emphasized.

It is needless to say that such painstaking industry implies the most
conscientious devotion on the part of Mr. Esmond to his client's cause — a
devotion as earnest and intense when the amount involved is small as
when it is large. His theory is that a small case is just as important to a
poor man as a large case is to a rich one and that the measure of duty,
of fidelity and devotion should be the same in each.

But mere industry is of little avail in the law unless directed by ability.
It is a valuable supplement to ability, never a substitute for it. Mr. Es-
mond has all the qualifications of an able trial lawyer. I once saw him
in Kingston pitted against one of the leaders of the Ulster County bar
overturn by the sheer force of his ability and address, all the prejudices
first formed against his client, the defendant, in the mind of both court
and jury, in a case in which the plaintiff, an old man, was seeking the
restoration of property turned over by him to his son. I heard Judge
Chester say that in the beginning of the trial he thought the plaintiff was
right but that as the case proceeded his mind changed. This result was
due solely to the splendid defense made by Mr. Esmond in a case which
from the start was full of elements of danger and defeat.

Mr. Esmond has always taken a prominent part in the literary life of
the community and in the discussion of public topics. His services to the
Chautauqua society have been most valuable, while his own addresses
upon a large variety of topics have been a distinct contribution to the
literature of the subject.

It is fortunate indeed for Mr. Esmond at this time that he has all these
resources to fall back upon ; else might he have been wholly crushed by

529 THE COUNTY OF ORANGE.

the cruel sorrow that came to him and his devoted wife in the recent loss
of their only child, Paul Warner Esmond, one of the most precocious,
promising and brilliant boys who ever lived. His poems, dealing with
the problems of life and death, are as mature, reflective and suggestive
as though written by a man of fifty. That such a child of genius should
be snatched away when the angel of death leaves untouched so many
circles from which one could be better spared, is a mystery that has
never ceased to perplex mankind.

Howard Thornton, of Newburgh, bel-esprit, bon-vivant and raconteur,
the favorite of society and the delight of dinner tables, is not one whit
less a good lawyer because he can smooth away the difficulties of a hostess
in entertaining her guests as easily as he can glide over the difficulties of
Jiis client's case in court. The best lawyers have always shone in society,
from Hamilton to Choate, and Mr. Thornton's social gifts have never
interfered with his devotion to his profession. Every morning, year in
and year out, the early riser can see Mr. Thornton at seven o'clock wend-
ing his way to his office where by ten o'clock he has already accomplished
a day's work and is ready to talk with his clients.

Mr. Thornton has always found his chief pleasure in some abstruse
question arising out of the law of wills or of real estate. He has been
drawn into some very important litigations involving the construction of
the transfer tax law and his contentions have been uniformly sustained by
the Court of Appeals.

Mr. Thornton's service in the Assembly, of which he was for three
years a member, showed his capacity for public affairs. He was chairman
of the judiciary committee and took high rank in legislation and politics.
But his tastes incline him to the more arduous and less devious duties of
his profession in which he has gained the reputation of an honorable,
talented and brilliant lawyer.

Russell Headley, of Newburgh, is the son of the eminent historian Joel
T. Headley from whom, doubtless, he inherits those literary gifts which
account in part for the direction of his energies into the field of legal
authorship. But this is not the only reason. It is but justice to him that
it should be known that Mr. Headley was interrupted in the very midst of
a brilliant career at the bar by the coming on of that most disqualifying
of all infirmities for an advocate — deafness. This naturally had the effect
of turning Mr. Headley to the labors of authorship for which his inherited

THE BENCH AND BAR. 53°

tastes and acquired accomplishments so well fitted him. His works upon
assignments, witnesses and criminal justice are well known to and widely
read by the profession.

Mr. Headley filled the position of district attorney of Orange County
for two terms. He especially distinguished himself at this time by his
abilities as a trial lawyer. ,,

Mr. Headley accepted in 1902 and still holds a position in the legal divi-
sion of the State Excise Department at Albany. His research, his faculty
for writing sound, able, exhaustive opinions and his knowledge of the
law of pleadings make him a most valuable member of the legal staff of
that very important branch of the public service, in which questions are
constantly arising which could scarcely be expected to come within the
purview of an arm of the service devoted to the enforcement of a single
law. In this work Mr. Headley is able to reconcile himself to the sur-
render of those more spectacular triumphs of the court room in which
his activities and his ambition once found a more congenial field.

Cornelius L. Waring, of Newburgh, is an authority in the law of mu-
nicipal corporations. He was for many years the attorney for the city,
the interests of which he always most zealously and successfully pro-
tected. He has a large general practice including among his clients some
wealthy business corporations.

Mr. Waring has had wide experience in the trial of cases. His man-
ner in court is marked by dignity, determination and persistency. He
never yields a point on his own side and he never fails to seize upon the
weak point in- the case of his adversary. His arguments are terse, direct
and forceful, always commanding ready and respectful attention.

Elmer E. Roosa, of the Newburgh bar, who was associated with Judge
Hirschberg at the time he ascended the bench, succeeded in large part
to the prestige of an office which had been established for nearly thirty
years. The confidence always reposed in him by Judge Hirschberg is
shared by a large body of devoted clients who find in him a safe, dis-
creet and honorable counselor.

Edward J. Colhns, of Newburgh, who is associated in practice with
Judge Seeger, possesses in a high degree that dignity of bearing and of
character which well supports professional attainments of a superior
order. He has been honored by his fellow citizens by repeated marks of
their confidence. He was for some years president of the common

531 THE COUNTY OF ORANGE.

council of the city of Newburgh, a position which brought into prom-
inence his fine qualities of mind and character.

Henry R. Lydecker, of Newburgh, has the most amiable disposition
of any lawyer at the bar. If he were more self-assertive his abilities
would be more widely appreciated. He showed marked ability in his
service four successive winters in the attorney general's office at Albany in
the work of reviewing for constitutional and other objections, the bills
sent by the Legislature to the Governor. This appointment was made
each year and would not have been repeatedly conferred unless the dis-
charge of his important duties had proved to be able and satisfactory.

Mr. Lydecker has recently received, at the instance of Presiding Jus-
tice Hirschberg, an appointment upon the clerical force of the Appellate
Division — another evidence df the high opinion entertained of him by
governors, attorneys general and judges alike.

J. Renwick Thompson, Jr., of Newburgh, is still permitted to write
"junior" to a noble and conspicuous senior, who now for more than fifty
years has ministered over one of the most important churches and con-
gregations in Newburgh. Mr. Thompson's character and standing wholly
contradict the adage about "ministers' sons." In his keeping all the tradi-
tions of an honorable lineage are safe, while a large and increasing client-
age can testify that in his hands are equally safe all the interests com-
miitted to him.

Elwood C. Smith, who has an office in Turner as well as in Newburgh,
has advanced rapidly in reputation and standing. His agreeable manners
and attractive personality always create a favorable impression sure to be
confirmed by future acquaintance with his character and abilities. He
enjoys the respect of the community and the confidence of a very consid-
erable clientage.

N. Deyo Belknap, of Newburgh, has shown great talent in all his
appearances in court and is a rising aspirant for professional honors. In
an action brought by him for the construction of a will he exhibited all
the qualities of a mature and experienced practitioner. His success at
the bar has been immediate and pronounced.

R. H. Barnett, of Newburgh, has made a specialty of negligence
actions. Like his great exemplar, John M. Gardner, he never concedes
that he is beaten. He always renews the argument to the court, after be-
ing nonsuited, so undauntedly that the court often reverses itself and

THE BENCH AND BAR. 532

lets the case go to the jury, before which Mr. Barnett meets with unvary-
ing success. A jury always admires pluck and pertinacity and these quali-
ties Mr. Barnett possesses in a marked degree.

Graham Witschief, of Newburgh, would attract attention in any assem-
bly for the intellectual cast of his features, which clearly betoken unusual
talent. This impression is at once confirmed when he addresses the court.
He so excels in the power of lucid statement that by the time he has
informed the court of the nature of the controversy he has already pro-
duced the effect of an argument. This faculty of seizing upon the crucial,
controlling points of the case, of applying the philosophical rather than
the historical method, is one of the rarest among lawyers, who usually
narrate the facts in the order in which they occurred, leaving the court to
pick out the essential, determining elements from a mass of more or less
related matter. This gift Mr. Witschief possesses to a degree so unusual
that it constitutes a large factor in the success which he has so rapidly
attained. He is a rising advocate, taking his place easily among the lead-
ers of the Orange County bar.

Benjamin McClung, of Newburgh, obtained, early in his practice, a
foremost position at the bar of the county. Oije of his first and most
notable victories, which attracted wide attention at the time, was won in
a proceeding instituted by him in 1892 to require the registry board of
the town of Highlands to strike from the register the names of over a
hundred soldiers quartered at West Point, who claimed the right to vote
in the village of Highland Falls, adjoining the Government reservation.
Mr. McClung took the position that the West Point reservation is not a
part of the territory of the State of New York; that upon the cession of
the territory by the State the general government became invested with
exclusive jurisdiction over it and that persons resident within it are not
entitled to vote. Mr. McClung, notwithstanding the limited time at his
disposal, upon the very eve of an exciting election, made a most exhaus-
tive and convincing argument, collating all the authorities and relying
chiefly upon the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Fort
Leavenworth Railroad Company vs. Lowe, which involved the character
of Government property at Fort Leavenworth. Though he was opposed
by such eminent counsel as Judge Hirschberg, Walter C. Anthony and
Howard Thornton, his argument was sustained by the court and the law
upon the subject was finally established in this State.

533 THE COUNTY OF ORANGE.

His stubborn defence a few years ago of an unpopular client will be
long remembered. So strong was the public sentiment against his client
and so thoroughly had the court room been surcharged with this sentiment
that it was impossible for Mr. McClung to prevent his client's conviction
of the oflfense of receiving stolen property, knowing it to be stolen. But,
nothing daunted, Mr. McClung procured a stay of the sentence, reversed
the conviction on appeal, and on the second trial cleared his client trium-
phantly, the court saying that the proof for the prosecution did not make
the slighest progress toward fastening guilt upon the defendant. This
case affords a striking illustration' of the dangers that often surround
innocent men in the artificially superheated atmosphere of a court room
created by an excited and credulous public opinion eager for a victim.
Had it not been for Mr. McClung's steadfast, stalwart and fearless exer-
tions in this case, in the face of much hostile criticism, an absolutely inno-
cent man, as subsequently ascertained by the court, would have been con-
signed to the ignominy of a term in State prison. Mr. McClung's action
in thus stemming the tide of adverse, powerful and malignant influences
bent upon crushing and ruining his client cannot be overestimated. It
attests his place at the Otange County bar not merely for intellectual
ability but for that moral courage which constitutes the very highest
attribute, the noblest equipment of the advocate.

That Mr. McClung's manly, independent and intrepid character is
understood and admired by the public was strikingly shown in the fall
of 1907 by his election to the office of mayor of the city of Newburgh by
a majority of over five hundred votes, overcoming an adverse majority
of about five hundred usually cast in that city against the candidate of
his party. The people evidently believed that Mr. McClung is imbued
with the idea that a municipal corporation is, in its last analysis, simply a
business corporation in which each taxpayer is a stockholder, the aldermen
its directors and the mayor its business manager.

Mr. McClung has already shown that this confidence in his character
and aims is well founded. He may be relied upon to give the people a
purely business administration unfettered by political obligations and
uninfluenced by the desire to build up a personal machine or to reward a
band of hungry parasites.

Henry Kohl, of Newburgh, now the partner of Mr. McClung, is also a
fighter. His tastes and his sympathies incline him to espouse the weaker

THE BENCH AND BAR. 534

cause, and he is often assigned by the court to defend those who are
unable to employ counsel. I remember a notable case in which he was
thus assigned arising out of the killing of a motorman by the alleged
criminal negligence of another motorman in causing a collision. The
indictment was for manslaughter and the trolley company refused to give
any assistance to the accused motorman, who languished several months
in the county jail while his case was being tossed back and forth between
the supreme and county courts. Mr. Kohl took hold of the case and so
stoutly convinced several jurors that the fault was that of the company
in not providing the motorman with proper appliances that a disagreement
was secured and the motorman discharged on his own recognizance. This
illustrates the quality of Mr. Kohl's work — earnest, strong, enthusiastic,
courageous, loyal. Nothing dismays him. The more able and astute his
opponent, the better he is satisfied, since it proportionately increases his
credit in beating him, as he always expects to do, and frequently does.

Mr. Kohl is a verdict getter. His recent success in getting a verdict
for $9,000 in a negligence case was a gratifying one, while he also recently
secured a favorable settlement in a case against the city growing out of
the fall of a tree in a high wind, causing the death of a young lady. The
lawyers who start in to try a case against Henry Kohl know that in him
they will find an opponent equipped at every point and with every art to
sway a jury and to save his client. He has forged his way ahead until
now he is in the front rank of Orange County's trial lawyers.

J. Bradley Scott, of Newburgh, is the son of that noble lawyer, David
A. Scott, whose precious legacy of an honorable name is guarded well by
the son, who came to the bar several years after his father's death. He
has developed far more fondness for the trial of cases than his father had
and has already achieved a distinct standing as a trial lawyer. His recent
success before the appellate courts, in the case involving the right of a
soda water establishment to refuse to furnish soda water upon request to
a colored person, has attracted great attention. The case involves grave
questions and far-reaching consequences. Mr. Scott's broad, powerful
and convincing argument in it shows that he inherits not only the good
name but also the fine intellectual, discriminating qualities of his distin-
guished father.

George H. Decker, of Middletown, is the dean of its trial lawyers. He
is the one first asked upon every public occasion to voice its spirit, or its

535 THE COUNTY OF ORANGE.

purpose, filling in this respect the part so often taken by Mr. Winfield,
who was, by the way, until his death, always one of Mr. Decker's warm-
est friends and admirers.

Possessed of a highly sensitive, responsive nature, a poetic, imaginative
temperament, an exquisitely nervous organization, his fibre is almost too
fine for the buffetings and shocks of the court room. While his brilliant
mind, his legal attainments and his oratorical powers have always been
exhibited in the court room to great advantage and with marked success,
yet he has often declined conflicts in which, if he had entered upon them,
not he, but his opponent, would have had occasion to regret it. Mr.
Decker has always placed a far more modest estimate upon his own
abilities than he should have done, and a far lower estimate than that of
the public, by which he is unreservedly admired and respected.

Mr. Decker's gifts as a public speaker, his scholarly tastes and his
literary attainments are never shown to greater advantage than upon the
lecture platform, from which he has often instructed and delighted a
cultured audience. His recent series of brilliant lectures upon Edgar
Allan Poe will be long remembered.

Soon after Mr. Decker's admission to the bar in 1870 he formed a part-
nership, under the name of McQuoid & Decker, with Henry M. McQuoid,
who died a few years later. Mr. McQuoid's portrait hangs in Mr.
Decker's office, but there is little else to remind us now of one who once
occupied a large place in the interest and attention of the public. Mr.
McQuoid was distinguished for bold, dashing, sparkling qualities as a trial
lawyer. Soon after Judge Groo moved from Monticello to Middletown
in 1866 he and Mr. McQuoid were opposed to each other in a trial in
which Mr. McQuoid disputed all of Judge Groo's legal propositions with
the prefatory remark, "That may be good law in Sullivan County but it
won't go in Orange County." After Judge Groo had stood this as long
as he thought he ought to, he remarked, "I want you to understand that
there are just as good lawyers in Sullivan County as in Orange County."
"Oh, yes," said McQuoid, "I know that, but they all stay there."

Judge Groo himself enjoyed the sally and was himself very quick at a
retort. Once upon a trial in Goshen in which he was opposed by Judge
George W. Greene, who at one time occupied a prominent place at the
Orange County bar, subsequently living in New York, where he died,
Judge Greene asked the jurors the usual question, whether any of them

THE BENCH AND BAR. 536

had ever done any business with Judge Groo, saying that if so he would
excuse them, whereupon Judge Groo said, "Are there any gentlemen in
th box who have ever done any business with Judge Greene; if so I
would like to have them remain.''

Mr. McQuoid had a wonderful memory. He could entertain his friends
by the hour repeating passages from famous orations or works of poetry.
His memory treasured even a fugitive poem read once in a newspaper. I
recall an instance of this. One day when I was driving back with him in
a buggy from Circleville, where we had tried a case against each other (it
was the local custom for the lawyers to drive out together for their jus-
tice's court trials) he repeated to me a poem he had seen in a newspaper
written by Prime, the well known Eastern traveler, in memory of a
young girl, Claude Brownrigg, who had died soon after he had told her
of his travels in Palestine, as they walked the beach one night in the moon-
light. I told Mr. McQuoid I would like a copy of it. So as soon as he
got back to Middletown he wrote it off for me. I have preserved it these
thirty years and more. Here are some of the lines :

"All this I wished as on the beach

Beside the sea I walked.
And to a young and white-robed girl,
As thus I wished I talked.
Talked of far travel, wanderings long,

And scenes in many lands,
And all the while the, golden path
Led eastward from the sands.

"And she has crossed the shining path.
The path where moonbeams quiver.
And she is in Jerusalem,
Forever, yes, forever."

That lines like these should be repeated by him in coming back from a
commonplace suit in justice's court shows how thirty-five years ago law-
yers thought and talked of something besides law and politics, money and
stock markets.

The name of the McQuoids should not be permitted to fade from the
memory of the passing generation. His brother, Charles C. McQuoid,
who died in 1866, attained even greater prominence at the bar. He en-
joyed great personal popularity and his premature death at the age of
thirty-six from typhoid fever, contracted at the home of a client, whose

537 THE COUNTY OF ORANGE.

will he had been asked to draw, removed from the bar one of its most
conspicuous figures. His popularity is shown by his success in defeating
Judge Gedney for district attorney by a narrow majority in 1859. He
served as district attorney until 1862, being succeeded by Abram S. Cas-
sedy, who in 1865 was succeeded by J. Hallock Drake, another brilliant
member of the Orange County bar who practiced in Newburgh for some
years but who subsequently settled in New York.

Charles G. Dill, now the Nestor of the Middletown bar, studied law
with Charles C. McQuoid, whose memory he holds in deep veneration.
Mr. Dill at one time enjoyed the largest practice in Middletown. It is
only lately that he has relaxed his devotion to business, now spending
several months each year in Florida, where he has extensive interests.

Mr. Dill is the very soul of honor and integrity in all the relations
of life. The kindness of his heart is often obscured by the brusqueness
of his manner which sometimes gives strangers a wholly erroneous
impression of a disposition singularly generous, open and buoyant. He
is the precise opposite of the type represented by the traditional cow
that gives a good pail of milk and then kicks it over. Mr. Dill kicks
over the pail first and then proceeds to fill it with the milk of human
kindness. He generally explains at the beginning how impossible it is
for him to do anything for you and ends by doing more for you than
you asked or expected.

Mr. Dill's miscellaneous library is the best in Orange County. He
is a born, inveterate, irreclaimable bibliophile. A week that passes by
without his buying some old, rare or scarce volume is to him a failure.
The question of price is never considered. If he wants it he gets it and
that is all there is of it. He has built several additions to his home to
accommodate his treasures, but they constantly overtax its capacity. They
overflow and regurgitate in a confusion that drives to despair the order
fiend and the dust hunter.

Rosslyn M. Cox, who was for many years the partner of Mr. Dill and
who recently has entered into partnership with Mr. Watts, is one of the
most successful lawyers in Middletown. He is an expert in accountings
before the surrogate and before the bankruptcy courts, but he is equally
at home in a trial or in an argument before the court. The esteem
in which he is held is shown by his nomination in 1906 for the office
of county judge.

THE BENCH AND BAR. 538

Associated with Mr. Cox is Elmer N. Oakes, whose abilities in the
preparation of a case for trial are unique and remarkable. He is a
natural mechanician, understanding with ease the most difficult adjust-
ments, functions and forms of complicated machinery. The knowledge
displayed by him in respect to the construction and operation of a loco-
motive boiler was an important element in the success of several actions
growing out of an explosion.

After preparing the case for trial Mr. Oakes is entirely competent to
try it. He has often examined and cross-examined the witnesses but
distrusts his own powers when it comes to summing up the case to the
jury. When his modesty shall be replaced by greater assurance he will
be better known for his really solid attainments and fine abilities.

Abram F. Servin will probably never overcome his timidity at the
sound of his own voice in the presence of a jury, though he can furnish
enough law to other lawyers to keep them busy expounding it to the
courts. He has argued and won cases in the Court of Appeals but his
chief victories are carried off by other lawyers who argue from the
learned and exhaustive briefs prepared by him. He is an expert in the
preparation of a brief for the appellate courts. He can take the printed
record of a case of which he never heard and construct from it a per-
fectly convincing brief upon either side.

Allen W. Corwin, who occupies the position of recorder of Middletown,
has displayed in the performance of his duties firmness tempered by
forbearance, judgment informed by conscience, justice controlled by
wisdom. His broad and humane policy in dealing with minor offenses,
united to his stern and rigid enforcement of the law in serious cases,
largely accounts for the almost entire freedom of Middletown from
crimes of pillage and violence.

Recorder William H. Hyndman, of Newburgh, has also succeeded
during the last few years in greatly reducing the number of crimes
committed in and about a city which was at one time infested by bold and
desperate criminals. A river town is always subject to greater danger,
through its opportunities for access and escape, but Recorder Hyndman
has earned the gratitude of the public for an administration of the
criminal law which has resulted in a marked improvement of the condi-
tions once prevalent in his jurisdiction.

Of course the discouragement of crime rests largely in the vigilance of

539 THE COUNTY OF ORANGE.

the district attorney of the county. Thomas C. Rogers, of Middletown,
the son of William H. Rogers, who himself could easily have attained
eminence at the bar if he had so chosen, was elected to this office in
1906. He has already shown that in his hands the wise, faithful and
efficient enforcement of the criminal law may be confidently depended
upon. His previous administration for three years of the office of
assistant district attorney was distinguished for unusual ability. He is
amply qualified to uphold the traditions of an office always ably filled by
such men as Fullerton and Garr, Brown and Hirschberg, Anthony and
Headley, Powelson and Seeger.

J. D. Wilson, Jr., of Newburgh, who received the appointment as
assistant district attorney, to serve with Mr. Rogers, is well qualified to
sustain the burdens of the position, which are necessarily very consider-
able when it is considered that he is expected to exercise special vigil-
ance in the entire eastern part of the county, including Newburgh itself.

Wickham T. Shaw was one of the most alert assistant district attorneys
that Orange Gounty ever had. He served in that capacity under Judge
Fullerton from 1868 to 1871, trying many of the cases. His career at
the bar of Middletown has afforded many opportunities for the display
of his knowledge of the criminal law, gained in that association with
one of the foremost lawyers of his time.

Abram V. N. Powelson never satisfied the expectations of his friends
until he came to the office of district attorney in 1897, a position which
he filled for seven years. They always knew that he had ability and they
always regretted that his retention of the office of justice of the peace,
for many years, prevented that recognition of his abilities to which they
were entitled. But the opportunity to show his solid worth both as a
lawyer and as a law officer came with his entrance into a wider field of
county administration in which he acquitted himself with credit and
distinction.

John F. Bradner, of Middletown, was also at one time closely con-
nected with the administration of the criminal law, having been 'the
recorder of Middletown for many years ; a position in which he presided
with great dignity over many important and exciting trials. Mr. Bradner
is an advocate who enters upon a trial with all the ardor and enthusiasm
born of absolute conviction in the justice of his cause, and he never
fails to make a strong impression upon a jury.

THE BENCH AND BAR. 540

John L. Wiggins, of Middletown, son-in-law of Judge Groo and brother
of WiUis H. Wiggins, an eminent member of the Ohio judiciary, is
distinguished for the earnestness, energy and enthusiasm with which he
espouses every cause committed to liim. He is original and resourceful.
In an action brought once against his client for a violation of the law in
respect of adulterated milk, Mr. Wiggins gravely argued to the jury that
in his judgment the law was unconstitutional. As the facts were clearly
against his client, the judge did not take the trouble to interrupt him,
but was astonished when the jury rendered a verdict in favor of Mr.
Wiggins' client, based wholly upon the constitutional argument.

The next day Mr. O'Neill, encouraged by Mr. Wiggins' tactics, entered
upon the same line of defence, but Judge Gaynor admonished by the
miscarriage of the day before, promptly suppressed it, and Mr. O'Neill's
client was convicted.

Alton J. Vail, of Middletown, is a lawyer whose modesty often conceals
his merits, which, however, are well known to his clients. Mr. Vail has
for many years transacted the business of the Middletown Savings Bank.
He is an authority upon titles and upon all questions involving the law
of real estate, his opinion upon these and kindred questions having
frequently been sustained by the courts. Wide experience, sound judg-
ment, conservative instincts, elevated character, absolute probity and in-
tense loyalty in friendship unite in Alton J. Vail, the able lawyer, the
honorable man, the upright citizen.

A. C. N. Thompson, of Middletown, who is in partnership with Mr.
Dill, has abundant inspiration in his name. He is the son of John A.
Thompson, once a prominent lawyer of Monticello who, on account of
his admiration for one of the greatest lawyers of his day named him
after Archibald C. Niven.

Mr. Thompson has already shown one quality conspicuous in his dis-
tinguished godfather — that of capacity for hard work. His energy and
self-denial in preparing himself for the bar while engaged in the exacting
duties of another calling, give promise of abundant success in the career
now opening before him.

Charles T. Vail, who entered upon a career of high promise at the bar
was cut down upon its threshold. No lawyer in Middletown ever had
the faculty of winning friends as easily as he. His sunny disposition,
affectionate nature and engaging manners won for him a host of admirers,

541

THE COUNTY .OF ORANGE.

adherents and clients. Undimmed affection in many hearts still sheds a
tear over the untimely grave of Charlie Vail.

DeWitt Van Zandt, of the Middletown bar, was the son of that gifted
divine, Dr. Van Zandt, so long the beloved pastor of the brick church at
Montgomery. Coming to Middletown fresh from college, his sparkling
wit and ready repartee endeared him to a large circle of admiring friends.
But soon he was overtaken by broken health, which paralyzed his energies
and crumbled his ambitions. Through all the experiences of a life that
failed to fulfil its early promise, he maintained the instincts, the manners
and the bearing of the true gentleman. He never lost the sweetness,
serenity and gentleness of his disposition, or the high standard of personal
honor inherited from his revered father. Fond meditation still tenderly
dwells upon the fadeless memory of DeWitt Van Zandt.

John G. Mills, of the Goshen bar, removed to Washington, where he
died in April, 1883. While necessity chained him to the law inclination
led him along the flowery paths of literature. His talents and accom-
plishments brought him into relations with the great and the gifted, one
of his dearest friends being Robert G. Ingersoll, who pronounced the
oration at his funeral. Mr. Ingersoll said :

"My friends : Again we are face to face with the great mystery that
shrouds the world. We question, but there is no reply. Out on the wide
waste seas there drifts no spar. Over the desert of death the sphinx
gazes forever, but never speaks.

"In the very May of life another heart has ceased to beat. Night has
fallen upon noon. But he lived, he loved, he was loved. Wife and chil-
dren pressed their kisses on his lips. This is enough. The longest life
contains no more. This fills the vase of joy.

"He who lies here, clothed with the perfect peace of death, was a kind
and loving husband, a good father, a generous neighbor, an honest man, —
and these words build a monument of glory above the humblest grave.
He was always a child, sincere and frank, as full of hope as spring. He
divided all time into to-day and to-morrow. To-morrow was without a
cloud and of to-morrow he borrowed sunshine for to-day. He was my
friend. He will remain so. The living oft become estranged; the dead
are true. * * *

"With him immortality was the eternal consequences of his own acts.
He believed that every pure thought, every disinterested deed, hastens the

THE BENCH AND BAR. 542

harvest of universal good. This is a reUgion that enriches poverty ; that
enables us to bear the sorrows of the saddest life ; that peoples even soli-
tude with happy millions yet to live, — a religion born not of selfishness
and fear, but of love, of gratitude and hope, — a religion that digs wells to
slake the thirst of others, and gladly bears the burdens of the unborn.

"But in the presence of death how beliefs and dogmas wither and
decay! How loving words and deeds burst into blossom! Pluck from
the tree of any life these flowers, and there remain but the barren thorns
of bigotry and creed.

"All wish for happiness beyond this life. All hope to meet again the
loved and lost. In every heart there grows this sacred flower. Immor-
tality is a word tliat Hope through all the ages has been whispering to
Love. The miracle of thought we cannot comprehend. The mystery of
life and death we cannot comprehend. This chaos called the world has
never been explained. The golden bridge of life from gloom emerges
and on shadow rests. Beyond this we do not know. Fate is speechless,
destiny is dumb, and the secret of the future has never yet been told. We
love ; we wait ; we hope. The more we love, the more we fear. Upon the
tenderest heart the deepest shadows fall. All paths, whether filled with
thorns or flowers, end here. Here success and failure are the same. The
rag of wretchedness and the purple robe of power all difference and dis-
tinction lose in the democracy of death. Character survives; goodness
lives; love is immortal."

Harrison W. Nanny, of Goshen, had a pathetic career. Possessed of
unusual talent and capacity he was handicapped in the practice of his pro-
fession by an accident which paralyzed his energies, embittered his soli-
tary life and pressed to his rebellious lips the chalice of mocking irony.

But while he was not resigned he was courageous. Some of the work
which he performed in suffering and illness is marked by a high degree of
intellectual power. Only his misfortunes prevented his attaining promi-
nence at the bar.

No one has a deeper affection for the memory of Mr. Nanny than his
old friend and partner, Charles L. Mead, who now lives in retirement
from the activities of his profession at his home in Middletown. Mr.
Mead has the unprecedented record of having served three terms in
succession as county treasurer — a striking proof of his influence, his pop-
ularity and his qualifications for public office. During his entire period

543 THE COUNTY OF ORANGE.

of service not one of his official acts was ever questioned and he surren-
dered the office crowned with the respect and confidence of the public.

Bradford R. Champion, of the Goshen bar, was a contemporary of
Winfield and Gedney. While his talents were not brilliant or showy he
still possessed those solid, sterling qualities of mind and heart which im-
part strength and vigor to individual character ; which inspire confidence
in the community at large; which uphold the very structure of society;
which confer blessings' upon every relation in life and which bring peace
and honor, repose and happiness to their possessor.

The recent death of William H. Wyker removed one who, while not
prominent in the trial courts, possessed many endearing traits of character
and occupied a large place in the social and civil life of Goshen. He was
also in great favor and request as a speaker in political campaigns. He
could have taken his place among the trial lawyers of the county, had he
so chosen, but, he, too, suffered under the disadvantage of having accepted
the office of justice of the peace — that abyss in which talent has so often
found its unmarked grave.

The late Benjamin F. Low, of the Middletown bar, was one of the most
genial spirits ever drawn into social relations with his fellow-men. He
fairly oozed companionship and good fellowship. He was also a good
lawyer, coming from a family of which Senator Henry A. Low, his
brother, was the most able and conspicuous member.

He had some notable successes at the bar. In the case of Josie Teets
against the city of Middletown he obtained a verdict for considerably
more than he would have got if it had not been for the mistake of his
opponent in the cross-examination of the plaintiff's physician. Dr. William
H. Dorrance, who, on the direct, had testified to only moderate injuries
to his patient as the result of her being thrown over the dashboard on
account of an obstruction in the street. But he became nettled by the
cross-examination and when he was finally asked : "Now, doctor, tell me
just what is the matter with this young lady," he replied: "Why, Mr.
O'Neill, there is not one organ or function of that woman's body that
works healthfully or naturally."

This brought up the verdict from $i,ooo, all that Mr. Low expected
to get, to $3,000. It was a lesson to all who heard it as to the danger of
giving a hostile witness too good an opening. As a matter of fact, the
woman is still living in vigorous health.

THE BENCH AND BAR. 544

Louis S. Sterrit, of Newburgh, who died in April, 1907, left a void
in the hearts of a large and intimate circle. He enjoyed an extensive
clientage and the confidence of the entire community. He was the
attorney of that old, strong and conservative institution, the Newburgh
Savings Bank, and of many other institutions and societies. His digni-
fied presence, his affable manners, his substantial worth, his sincerely re-
ligious character, his mental poise combined to produce an impression
upon the community which the corrosion of time will, with difficulty
efiface.

Mr. Sterrit was eminently public-spirited. In 1904 he erected at the
entrance of Woodlawn Cemetery, New Windsor, two very fine gates. He
also placed in the Union Presbyterian church of Newburgh a tablet in
memory of the late Rev. Alexander B. Jack, one of his pastors.

His generosity was unbounded. No client, however poor or humble,
ever failed of help or counsel because he lacked a fee.

The death in 1906 of Lewis W. Y. McCroskery, of the Newburgh
bar, created a general feeling of sorrow and a distinct sense of personal
loss. He had filled many offices which brought him into individual rela-
tions with the entire community, and it is safe to assert that he had not
a single enemy. His appointment as postmaster by President Cleveland
was filled with credit to himself and usefulness to the public service. His
professional career was interrupted by this service, but when he resumed
his practice at the expiration of his term his clients gathered about him
again, for they and the bar alike always appreciated deeply his amiable
disposition, his spotless character, his solid ability.

Joseph M. Leeper, of the Newburgh bar, also passed away in 1906. A
veteran of the Civil War his health did not permit him to engage in active
practice, but he took an honorable pride in his membership of a profes-
sion which he never did one act to discredit.

The mention of Mr. Leeper suggests the name of one who should not
be suffered to fall into oblivion, for it was one of the strongest passions
of his own life to perpetuate the memory of the leaders of the Orange
County bar, by which he was especially deputed to prepare and publish the
memorial to Mr. Winfield. No one will dissent from a passing tribute to
the generous instincts and throbbing heart of John K. Goldsmith.

Henry W. Chadeayne, elected in 1906 supervisor of the town of Corn-
wall, but practicing in Newburgh, stands out as one of the few men who

545 THE COUNTY OF ORANGE.

always says what he thinks. You can always tell where to find him, and
that is just where he says he is. You do not have to go to any one else
to learn where he stands. Just ask him and you will know. He has no
patience with trimmers and time-servers. He always takes the most
straight road possible to any given end.

This rugged intellectual honesty constitutes a positive force and a
sterHng asset. The public service and the legal profession have no purer
representative than Henry W. Chadeayne.

Among the members of the Newburgh bar who have risen rapidly to
prominence is James G. Graham, the son of the gifted lawyer already
referred to, whose full name he bears. Mr. Graham, after four years'
experience in public affairs at Albany, in the executive chamber, accepted
the ofiEce of deputy attorney-general, which he held two years. This po-
sition, which has always been a most exacting one, involving the trial
and argument of cases of great magnitude, was filled by Mr. Graham
with marked ability and to the entire satisfaction of the public. It was
during his incumbency of this position that Mr. Graham was chiefly in-
strumental in bringing about the creation of the new ninth judicial dis-
trict—a service for which the Orange County bar can never be sufficiently
grateful to him. It is to his untiring and influential exertions that we
are chiefly indebted for the creation of a natural, homogeneous judicial
district, free from the blight and incubus of Kings County — a district in
which the accession to the bench of Judges Mills, Tompkins and Mor-
schauser insures the preservation of those standards of judicial dignity,
decorum, deliberation and, above all, consideration for the rights and
feelings of the bar, which have been so nobly maintained by their dis-
tinguished colleague. Judge Keogh.

The Newburgh bar has many members of varying degrees of promi-
nence and experience, including the venerable Jesse F. Shafer, who was
born in 1828; Samuel E. Dimmick, who comes from a family of able
lawyers ; Seward U. Round, who worthily bears the famous name be-
stowed upon him at the time his father was principal of the Seward In-
stitute at Florida; Caleb H. Baumes, who is idolized by his brethren of
the Odd Fellows ; Peter Cantline, aggressive, ambitious and rising, des-
tined to take his place among the foremost members of the Orange
County bar; James M. H. Wallace, earnest, forcible, unflinching, inde-
fatigable and intellectual ; Charles W. U. Sneed, modest, interesting and

THE BENCH AND BAR. 546

well informed ; David C. Scott, patient, devoted and industrious ; Lero^
Dicker son, engaging and efficient; John B. Corwin, the fit successor of
Louis S. Sterrit as attorney for the Newburgh Savings Bank and, like
him, retiring and reserved until the occasion calls for action, when he is
eloquent, convincing and powerful ; Frank W. Tompkins, popular and re-
spected; George W. May, refined and gentlemanly; Martin G. Mould,
courteous and affable ; W. J. Wygant, unassuming and competent ; Reeve
Ketcham, faithful and energetic; Reuben H. Hilton, U. S. Collector of
the Port of Newburgh; Russell S. Coutant, accomplished and scholarly;
Nehemiah Fowler, solid and dignified ; A. D. and A. W. Lent, father and
son, educated, amiable and conscientious.

The Walden bar is adorned by the ardent, impulsive, enthusiastic, bril-
liant A. S. Embler ; by the earnest, thoughtful, learned Irving H. Lough-
ran; by the bustling, energetic, ambitious Anson J. Fowler, and by the
fine natural abilities of Caleb B. Birch, Jr.

Joseph M. Wilkin, of the Montgomery bar, bears an honored name —
that of his father, who for several years occupied a prominent position
at the bar of Tennessee, returning to Orange County at the opening of
the war on account of his pronounced Union sentiments. He was the
brother of Judge John G. Wilkin, already referred to, and the two had
many traits of character in common derived from their sterling ancestry.
It is not strange that the younger Joseph M. Wilkin should exhibit in
his present administration of the duties of special surrogate the qualities
which have always distinguished the members of his famous and honor-
able family.

The bar of Montgomery is also strengthened by the high character and
unquestioned capacity of William L. Dickerson. But Montgomery has
ceased to be the center of legal interest which it was in the days when
Edward Van Orsdall organized a suit there at least once a week and
where he and that once well known member of the Goshen bar, George
W. Millspaugh, frequently tried out the issues before a jury packed to
beat one or the other.

The Middletown bar includes, among its well known members, Henry
T. Crist, whose personal popularity led to his election as coroner ; Russell
M. Vernon, who has acquired a large practice in the Surrogate's Court ;
Howard M. Starr, who is performing the duties of justice of the peace ;
John Bright, whose alertness, readiness and general information predes-

547 THE COUNTY OF ORANGE.

tine him to an active career; Jeremiah E. Barnes, who served most
acceptably for several years as the recorder of the city of Middletown,
and Charles C. Elston, who has manfully overcome many difficulties in
establishing and maintaining his position at the bar.

The Goshen bar includes among its honored members Charles W.
Coleman, who, notwithstanding that he is a martyr to ill health and is
compelled to spend the winters in Florida, retains the confidence and busi-
ness of a host of personal friends ; also William D. Mills, who has learn-
ing enough to equip a dozen lawyers for successful practice.

Louis Bedell, of the Goshen bar, secured at Albany in the Assembly a
more powerful personal influence than any member from his district ever
enjoyed, with the exception of his former partner, George W. Greene.
This was, of course, partly due to the wisdom of the electors in keeping
him there. But Mr. Bedell's many qualifications for success in public
life accounted in a large degree for the extent of his influence. A lawyer
is always needed in either the Assembly or the Senate and no amount of
good fellowship or general intelligence can make up for the lack of legal
training and experience.

Joseph Merritt, of Goshen, whose diffidence prevents his coming into
prominence before the public is, however, unable to conceal from his
professional brethren his very superior legal attainments. He is a lawyer
of the very first rank. His opinion is respected and followed in many
instances in which the court is unaware that it is he who has guided it to
a correct conclusion.

Philip A. Rorty, of the Goshen bar, has gone rapidly to the front. The
wide experience gained by him in the extensive business established by
the firm of Bacon & Merritt, in which he is a partner, has been used by
him to great advantage. He is entrusted with the preparation of impor-
tant cases, in the trial of which also he takes a considerable and highly
creditable part. He is an expert in railroad law and in the law of
negligence.

J. Floyd Halstead, of Goshen, is the son of one of the most warm-
hearted, noble, honorable men who ever lived — the late John R. Hal-
stead of Unionville. If he will but emulate in private and professional life
the virtues of his most estimable father he will be sure to continue and
confirm the success which has already in a large measure attended upon
him.

THE BENCH AND BAR. 548

J. V. D. Benedict, of Warwick, represented his district in the Assembly
in the year 1877. His suavity of manner and moderation of speech are
the sincere reflection of a kind, generous and affectionate nature.

His interest in various pursuits has interfered with the singleness of
his devotion to the law, but his opinion upon difficult questions has often
been sought and followed with the most satisfactory results to himself
and to his clients.

Clifford S. Beattie, of Warwick, who is associated in business with
his father. Judge Beattie, settled in his old home after a most valuable and
enlightening experience, as one of the legal staff of the Metropolitan
Railway system in New York. He possesses an individuality, an inde-
pendence and a strength of character which prevent his being over-
shadowed by the great reputation of his father. But if he did not have
these qualities he would not be a Beattie.

Lewis J. Stage, of Warwick, who is associated in business with Mr.
Kane, under the name of Kane & Stage, had the good sense to voluntarily
resign the oifice of justice of the peace — that grave of professional ambi-
tion ; that rock upon which so many a professional career has foundered.
Since then he has made strides in reputation and influence.

Mr. Stage has always taken an active part in the educational, philan-
thropic, historical and religious interests of the community. His sincerity
in this is manifest and unquestioned. He is free from all forms of cant
and pretense, sham and affectation.

John Miller, of Comwall-on-Hudson, whose memory goes back to the
days of McKissock, is a veritable encyclopedia of the law; a storehouse
of principles and authorities ; a reservoir of unlimited capacity ; a fountain
of perennial flow. If he had been as able to apply, discriminate and
assimilate as he has been to accumulate stores of knowledge his abilities
would undoubtedly have been more widely recognized.

Thomas S. Hulse, of Westtown, has long enjoyed the advantage of
being the only lawyer in town. He is often consulted upon the controver-
sies arising in it and his influence is always for peace rather than strife,
for settlement rather than litigation. His solid worth of character com-
mands for him universal and unchallenged respect.

Frank R. Gump, of Highland Falls, signalized his entrance into prac-
tice at the Orange County Bar by bringing the unusual action of a man
against a woman for her breach of promise in refusing to marry him. He

549 THE COUNTY OF ORANGE.

has been the attorney for some most important interests involved in
actions brought to determine priority of water rights. The ability shown
by him in the management of these cases and especially in the examination
and cross-examination of the witnesses in several trials has given him a
recognized position at the bar of the county.

Frank Lybolt, of Port Jervis, who filled most competently a term of
office as special county judge, has tried some cases in the Supreme Court
with an intelligence, earnestness and spirit which attracted the attention
of his professional brethren.

Wilton Bennet, of Port Jervis, has given special attention to the trial
of criminal cases in which his zeal, earnestness, boldness and eloquence
have given to him many professional victories and to his clients many
occasions for profound and lasting gratitude.

William P. Gregg, of the Port Jervis bar, has, by his straightforward
and manly character, impressed himself most favorably upon the com-
munity. His ability as a lawyer received deserved recognition in Janu-
ary, 1907, when he was appointed the tax appraiser of Orange County.

Henry B. Fullerton, of Port Jervis, greatly resembles in character and
ability his relative, Daniel Fullerton, who, though he did not attain the
eminence of his brothers, William and Stephen W. Fullerton, possessed
more original gifts and natural eloquence than either of them.

The Port Jervis bar is also enriched by the fine character and sterling
abiHties of Alfred Marvin and R. Edward Schofield.

William A. Parshall, of Port Jervis, who was at one time associated
with Mr. Carr in the protection of the interests of the Erie Railroad
Company, has won the respect of the community and of his professional
brethren by the high-minded, honorable, sincere and manly course which
he has always pursued in every walk of life, private, public and profes-
sional.

His splendid vote in the autumn of 1907 for the office of surrogate
attests the popular esteem in which he is held.

John B. Swezey, his successful competitor, entered upon the duties
of the office of surrogate in January, 1908.

He was for many years the attorney for the Middletown State Hos-
pital and he has occupied many other positions of responsibility, the duties
of which he has always discharged with fidelity and ability. His service
as special surrogate brought the bar of the county into close acquaintance

THE BENCH AND BAR. 55°

with his superior judicial qualifications and prepared it to expect his ele-
vation to still higher judicial station.

Ojrange County has always been fortunate in its surrogates and the
friends of Judge Swezey confidently expect him to maintain unsullied
the traditions and the standards set by such predecessors as Scott and
Coleman, Wadsworth and Howell.

Obadiah P. Howell retired from the office of surrogate on the first of
January, 1908, after an incumbency of twelve years, with the profound
respect of the bar and of the public for both his character and his attain-
ments. Judge Howell possesses an evenly balanced, well poised character
which admirably fitted him for the duties of this position.

His abilities as a lawyer were also brought into constant requisition
during his terms of office on account of the many new questions which
arose under the operation of the transfer tax statutes. These questions
were disposed of by him with rigid impartiality, zealous regard for every
interest represented, and deep anxiety to arrive at a just and sound con-
clusion. His careful discrimination in applying the principles of law in-
volved has resulted in a body of decisions which command the respect
of both the bar and the judiciary.

Judge Howell was always most conservative. Such was his veneration
for the last wishes of a dying testator that if he ever felt it his duty to
set aside a will, the fact is not generally known. He gave no encourage-
ment to those frivolous and often merely speculative or intimidating con-
tests which have done so much to bring probate administration into re-
proach in many jurisdictions.

Judge Howell always exhibited one characteristic which commands
.special commendation. He never tolerated the merely perfunctory per-
formance of their duties by guardians appointed to represent the interests
of minors or incompetents. He exacted the most careful investigation of
their rights to the end that they should be fully protected and he so exer-
cised his authority in making appointments as to insure this result. His
administration will go down to history as one of the purest and ablest in
the annals of the county.

Roswell C. Coleman, who preceded Judge Howell in the office of surro-
gate, occupying it for twelve years (1883-1895), entered upon his duties
with peculiar qualifications for their successful discharge. His profes-
sional bent had always been in the direction of practice in the Surrogate's

551 THE COUNTY OF ORANGE.

Court and of interest in all the questions arising in the construction of
wills. Moreover he began his practice with the senior Joseph W. Gott,
an association from which he could not fail to derive benefit as well as
pleasure.

His eminently judicial temperament was early recognized by the judges
and by his associates with the result that, in the days when references
were far more common than they are now, owing to the inadequacy of
the judicial force and the necessity for auxiliary requisitions upon the
profession, Mr. Coleman was constantly designated by the court and by
consent of counsel to serve in important references. His absolute fair-
ness, his love of justice, his freedom from influence and his unerring
judgment made him the favorite referee in the county during that entire
period of imperfect judicial service which was supplemented in him by
an ability fully equal to that of the judge appointing him. I remember
an occasion when Judge Barnard, in announcing the selection of Mr.
Coleman as referee, remarked to the attorney, "Don't let him get after
3'ou with his gun," referring to his well-known experience in 1875 as a
member of the first American rifle team that ever went abroad, Mr. Cole-
man returning with several prizes for his skilful marksmanship.

Mr. Coleman's tenure of the office of surrogate was distinguished for
the display of those high judicial qualities with which the entire bar had
"become acquainted in his frequent exercise of them as referee. Indeed,
so great was the respect in which they were held that in many contests
involving large interests, the parties acquiesced in his decision as final, the
defeated party taking no appeal. This was notably the case in the matter
of the will of John S. Sammons, in which all his property was given to
a church upon the condition that it should care perpetually for his tomb.
The church took no appeal from the decision of Surrogate Coleman re-
fusing to admit the will to probate. The opinion of the surrogate is a
masterly review of the law of insane delusions as affecting testamentary
capacity; pointing out that a will may often be upheld notwithstanding
the presence of insane delusions when those delusions do not tend to pro-
duce the will. But in this case the will was rejected because the delusion
under which the testator labored did govern him in the disposition of his
property, he having formed the delusion that his body was to be pre-
served to the end of time and having given his property to the church to
secure the protection of his tomb from disturbance. The opinion con-

THE BENCH AND BAR. 552

tains a very subtle, acute and interesting discussion of other delusions
cherished by the testator which would not in themselyes have invalidated
the will, but which are considered as bearing upon the liability of the
testator to form a delusion by which he was controlled in the disposition
of his property.

Although the case attracted great attention, the opinion of the surro-
gate never was reported. For this reason it is especially appropriate that
a partial report of it should be preserved in this all too perishable record.
The case constitutes, also, one of the notable legal victories of Henry
W. Wiggins, who appeared for the contestants.

Mr. Coleman since his retirement from the bench has been honored
with many marks of continued confidence in his judicial qualifications.
No lawyer now living commands greater respect for the simplicity of his
life, the purity of his character, the force of his example, the vigor of
his manhood, the solidity of his attainments and the genuineness of his
learning than does Roswell C. Coleman.

Henry A. Wadsworth, who preceded Mr. Coleman in twelve years'
incumbency of the office of surrogate, brought to its duties a lai^ge fund of
practical knowledge, common sense and capacity for affairs. His legal
attainments were ample and he was deeply anxious in every case to arrive
at a sound and just decision. His place in the affections of the bar was
accurately as well as touchingly set forth in the memorial address of
Judge Hirschberg, in which he said :

"The sweetness and gentleness of his nature, his genial and frank
spirit, the generous impulses of his heart, and the broad and engaging
charity of his views are known best to the favOred few who rejoiced in
his intimate companionship. His hand was open as the day to melting
charity. His deaHngs were ever plain, straightforward and direct. He
despised all shams and affectations. To his friends he was the very soul
of unselfish loyalty, and to the party which honored both him and itself
in his elevation, and in whose counsels he was ever a trusted leader, he
rendered always a manly and unfaltering allegiance. A loving husband,
an affectionate and indulgent father, a wise, honest and safe adviser, an
unstained lawyer, an incorruptible judge, and a loyal friend are- buried
in his grave. And if amid the good of his great nature there was
mingled any blemish or alloy of human fault or folly, let us to whom his
name is now but a sweet and tender memory

553 THE COUNTY OF ORANGE.

'No further seek his merits to disclose

Nor draw his frailties from their dread abode,
(There they alike in trembling hope repose)
The bosom of his Father and his God.' "

Gilbert O. Hulse, who preceded Mr. Wadsworth in the office of surro-
gate, still survives at the age of eighty-four to relate his reminiscences
of the bench and bar of a previous generation. Before coming to this
office in 1868 he had enjoyed a large professional experience which fully
qualified him for his duties. He was engaged in many notable cases, in
one of which, attracting great attention at the time, he established a lost
will many years after it had been wrongfully destroyed and secured the
property till then denied to its rightful owners, his clients. Much of his
professional life has been passed in the city of New York, but he retains
his residence in Orange County, in which he was born in 1824, and with
which his ancestors had been identified since 1775.

The early part of the last century was marked by the rise in Orange
County of an able and progressive bar, whose courage and public spirit
contributed to keep alive the fires of exalted patriotism. Jonathan Fisk,
who removed to Newburgh in 1800, became one of the most influential cit-
izens of the county, being elected twice to congress and being appointed
twice United States attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Henry G. Wisner, who was admitted in 1802, settled in Goshen in
1810, where for thirty years he stood forth as its most prominent citizen,
its most active philanthropist and one of its foremost lawyers.

Walter Case, who also was admitted in 1802, settled in Newburgh,

serving in congress and becoming the surrogate of the county in 1823

for a term of four years. His scholarly tastes and literary gifts still find

■ inherited expression through the cultured mind of his descendant, Walter

Case Anthony.

David W. Bate and Thomas McKissock, who were associated under
the name of Bate & McKissock, were strong and able men, exercising a
wide and potent influence. Judge Bate was elected county judge in 1847.
Judge McKissock was appointed supreme court judge to serve for a few
months and was elected to Congress in 1849.

William C. Hasbrouck, who studied with Mr. Wisner, was admitted in
1826 and began his practice in Newburgh, where he resided until his
death. He was speaker of the Assembly in 1847 and attracted attention

THE BENCH AND BAR. 554

and admiration abroad as well as at home by a courtly presence and
charming address, united to robust manhood and sturdy principles. He
enjoyed the personal friendship of many prominent men of every shade
of opinion, including Sam Houston, Andrew Jackson and William H.
Seward. He died in 1870.

Benjamin F. Duryea filled a large place in the life of the county. Ad-
mitted in 1839, he became surrogate in' 1847 and county judge in 1855.
His opinion upon any state of facts submitted to him was regarded by his
associates of the bar as conclusive upon the questions of law involved.
His son, Henry C. Duryea, whose career was marred by precarious health,
survived him until 1906.

Of all the able lawyers who have kept bright the fame of the Goshen
Bar, perhaps no one ever exhibited greater force of character or made a
deeper impression upon his fellow citizens than Samuel J. Wilkin, who
was admitted to the bar in 1815 and who practiced in Goshen from that
time until his death in 1866. He served with distinction in Congress and
in the Senate of the State. His fiery eloquence, commanding presence
and lofty character live in traditions that will long preserve his name
from indifference or his memory from neglect. His daughter Sara be-
came the wife of ex-Surrogate Roswell C. Coleman. His father. General
James W. Wilkin, was also a distinguished man, serving in the Senate,
Assembly and Congress, and coming within one vote of being elected
to the United States Senate.

Oliver Young rose to conspicuous influence and weight in Port Jervis
soon after his removal there in 1849. He lived during the period of
political unrest which soon afterwards set in, and he was the foremost
champion of anti-slavery principles in the county at a time when his
sentiments were highly unpopular. He survived to see the once decried
abolitionists acclaimed by the arbitrament of war and the verdict of his-
tory the most advanced statesmen of their century. He died in 1871.

This brings our narrative to the point of time from which the direct
connection of the Orange County bar with the events of that stirring
period and with the subsequent history of the county has been traced.

When it is considered that, in the sixty years preceding the publication
of Eager's History of Orange County in 1847, "o less than one hundred
and seventy-five lawyers were admitted to practice in Orange County,
their names appearing in the appendix to that volume ; and that, in the

555 THE COUNTY OF ORANGE.

sixty years now elapsed since its publication, fully as many more have
been added to the number, it will readily be seen how impossible it is to
undertake, in one department of a general county history, a sketch of
many, among the living and the dead, whose estimable career it would be
a pleasure to follow and depict. The purpose of this review and the treat-
ment of its themes are entirely different from the plan and melihod
adopted in Ruttenber's History of Orange County published in 1881, to
which the reader is referred for such dates as may not be accessible here
in respect to some of the lawyers who flourished before that time; while
to Eager's history is referred the reader who may seek simply the names
of those who were admitted to practice before 1847.

The bar of Orange County has also contributed to wider fields of
activity many who have reflected high honor upon the place of their
professional nativity. One of these was Benjamin F. Dunning, who,
when he was in practice in Goshen in 1853, was invited by the leader of
the New York bar, Charles O'Conor, to become associated with him.
That veteran of the Orange County clerk's office, Charles G. Elliot, who
has seen three generations of lawyers come upon the scene, told me that
he was in the clerk's office when Mr. Dunning received the letter from
Mr. O'Conor containing this proposition and saw him show it to Nathan
Westcott, then a leading lawyer of the county and once its district attor-
ney, whose brilliant career was interrupted by paralysis resulting from a
fall from a wagon. Mr. Westcott handed the letter back to Mr. Dunning
with the remark that Mr. Dunning would never live to receive a higher
honor than this evidence of Mr. O'Conor's admiration and confidence.
This confidence was abundantly justified in the long years of Mr. Dun-
ning's association with Mr. O'Conor, which continued until Mr. O'Conor
retired from practice.

William Fullerton also was invited by Charles O'Conor to New York,
where he soon established a reputation as the most superb cross-examiner
of his generation and as an advocate of remarkable gifts. He retained
until his death his residence in Newburgh, where he had originally been
associated in practice with James W. Fowler, whose honorable service
as the surrogate of Orange County from 1851 to 1855 is still remembered.

John Duer, after several years of practice in Goshen, went in 1820 to
New York, where he became a justice of the Superior Court and the
author of several valuable textbooks. His fame is preserved in his writ-

THE BENCH AND BAR. 556

ings, though these give no conception of the effect of his noble presence
and impassioned oratory.

Of course, the reputation which towers above that of any man ever
born in Orange County is that of WilHam H. Seward, who studied law in
Goshen with John Duer and Ogden Hoffman. This is not because he
was a greater lawyer than either of his preceptors but because his career
as a United States senator in the period of excitement before the Civil
War, his valuable services as Secretary of State in the crisis of our
national life and his farseeing statesmanship in acquiring the territory of
Alaska, have written his name large upon the roll of everlasting fame.

Ogden Hoffman, indeed, excelled him in all the attributes of a great
lawyer. Admitted to the bar in 1818 and elected district attorney of
Orange Count}' in 1823, his transcendent abilities soon drew him to New
York, where he transfixed the wondering gaze of its brilliant bar, which
welcomed into its firmament this star of first magnitude. Benjamin D.
Stillman, one of its leaders, in an address made in 1889, thus refers to
him : "The fascinating Ogden Hoffman, the Erskine of our. bar, at which
he became powerful and eminent and captivated all by his art and his
wonderful eloquence ; his voice was music from the note of a lute to the
blast of a bugle." Luther R. Marsh, when opposed to him once upon a
trial, sought to forestall the dreaded effect of the speech in which Hoffman
was to follow by describing him as one who "could rise upon the heaving
exigencies of the moment, and at whose bidding instant creations and
mighty embodyings of thought and argument, sublime conceptions, glow-
ing analogies and living imagery burst as by miracle from the deep of
mind in overshadowing forms of majesty and power."

George Clinton and his nephew, DeWitt Clinton, are claimed by Ulster
County, because New Windsor, the town in which they were born was, at
the time, a part of Ulster County, it not having been set off to Orange
County until 1799. But their fame has passed beyond the trivial rivalries
of county pride. It belongs to the State and to the Nation. George Clin-
ton died in 1812, vice-president of the United States. DeWitt Clinton
died in 1828, governor of the State of New York.

In our own time, too. Orange County has contributed to the bar of the
State many distinguished ornaments. The brilliant career of Lewis E.
Carr, once its district attorney, but now a member of the Albany bar. ha?
already been outlined.

557 THE COUNTY OF ORANGE.

George W. McEIroy is a member of the Orange County bar, now repre-
senting it at Albany, of which the bar is particularly proud. In the
intervals of his official duties in the Transfer Tax Bureau he prepared a
work upon the transfer tax law which affords abundant evidence of his
industry, research and learning.

Mr. McElroy's service as special surrogate of the county at the time
that he resided in Warwick, was distinguished for some opinions which
.showed his marked qualifications for judicial station. He wrote an opin-
ion in a case involving the question whether the statute of limitations runs
in favor of an administrator, in which the doctrine maintained by him
was not generally accepted by the courts ; but later the courts adopted and
enforced the view which he, at one time, was almost alone in asserting.

Mr. McElroy is assured of a warm welcome from his brethren of the
Orange County bar when he is ready to exchange the weary, dreary,
depressing treadmill of department officialism for the pleasant, refreshing,
verdured paths of general practice.

John B. Kerr, of the Newburgh bar,'is another lawyer of whom Orange
County is indeed proud, though he has now been separated for some years
from its personal associations and activities, having accepted the position
of general counsel for the New York, Ontario & Western Railroad Com-
pany. In this responsible position he finds unusual opportunity to exer-
cise and develop those qualities of sound judgment, rare foresight, steady
poise and intellectual grasp in which he so excels and of which his early
career at the bar gave abundant promise.

Thomas P. Fowler, whose home is in Warwick, and who was at one
time a member of the firm led by his distinguished father-in-law, Benja-
min F. Dunning, has acquired a position in the railroad and financial
world which reconciles him to his withdrawal from the activities of his
profession. The masterly ability shown by him in making the New York,
Ontario & Western Railroad Company one of the most important and
valuable railroad properties of the country has given him national promi-
nence and reputation.

John M. Gardner, formerly of the Newburgh bar, settled in New York,
where his chief reputation has been gained in actions against corporations.

He is a recognized authority in the law of negligence, having won many .
important cases and having edited for some years a series of reports spe-
cially devoted to cases of negligence. Mr. Gardner was born in Warwick,

THE BENCH AND BAR. 558

to which lovely spot he frequently returns. His career in Newburgh was
distinguished by the same qualities which have commanded success in
a broader field. His fine presence, unfailing resources, entire self-posses-
sion, tireless energy, dauntless courage and impressive delivery combine to
make him one of the most formidable trial lawyers of the State.

Amos Van Etten, who began his practice in Port Jervis, removed to
Kingston, where he very soon established his title to recognition as one
of the leaders of the Ulster County bar, a position which he now holds
by general acknowledgment of both the bar and the public.

Mr. Van Etten, as the attorney for the New York Central Railroad,
and of other public service corporations, has been compelled to give his
chief attention to railroad and negligence law, though he commands also a
wide general practice. His success has been emphatic, pronounced and
permanent.

William H. Stoddard, formerly of the Middletown bar, has become a
prominent member of the Buffalo bar. He is original, independent and
entertaining in his addresses to juries, while his conversation is full of
wit, sally and anecdote.

One day there came to his office an old client whose wife had just left
him to take up her abode with another man. His client was in deep
dejection and wanted comfort. This is the way "Stod" — as he was famil-
iarly called by his friends — gave it to him. He said; "Cheer up, John,
brace up : why, there are a dozen men in Middletown who would be glad
to be in your shoes to-day."

Referring once to the wife of a friend, who was known to be a terma-
gant, he said: "She's the most even-tempered woman I ever knew —
always mad."

This faculty of bold, rapid characterization has always prevented him
from being dull either in his speeches or in social life. He is nothing if
not interesting. His rare qualities of mind and heart endeared him to a
large Orange County circle, which still affectionately remembers him.

William S. Bennett, formerly of the Port Jervis bar, removed to New
York, where his career has been one of uninterrupted prosperity and
promotion. He is now representing his district in Congress, where he
has already achieved distinction in that most difficult of all places in which
to compel immediate recognition.

His abilities have been so conspicuous and the esteem of his colleagues

559 THE COUNTY OF ORANGE.

has been so unmistakably manifested that the attention of the entire
country has been fixed upon this still cherished son of Orange County.

Not only has Orange County sent forth many lawyers whose names
have become famous throughout the world, but Orange County is the
Mecca to which many of the country's ablest lawyers repair to spend
their declining years, attracted by its beauty and invigorated by its atmos-
phere. Benjamin F. Tracy, once secretary of the navy and long one of
the leading advocates of the bar of Brooklyn and New York, now spends
much of his time upon his beloved farm near Goshen. General Henry
L. Burnett, prominent in Ohio and New York, whose life of high adven-
ture and brilliant achievement possesses all the interest of romance, also
finds upon his Goshen estate the leisure in which to charm a choice circle
of friends old and new with reminiscences of the famous men with whom
he has been associated on equal terms and of the stirring scenes in which
he has so honorably and conspicuously mingled.

Orange County, which has in days gone by attracted to itself the sensi-
tive poet, Nathaniel P. Willis, the scholarly historian, Joel T. Headley,
the gifted lawyer, Luther R. Marsh, and the still vigorous publicist, John
Bigelow, will never cease to have a charm for the retired veteran of let-
ters and the law. It should never cease to interest also the active and alert
practitioner who, on its rugged hills and in its peaceful valleys and by its
murmuring streams and from its bracing atmosphere can draw vitality,
inspiration and delight — strength for the duties of each succeeding hour
as he seeks to emulate the lofty virtues and resplendent talents of those
whose eyes, like his, once wandered with rapture over its entrancing
prospects.

Note by the Editor.
The Editor deeply regrets that since the modesty of the author has
forbidden any reference to himself this review of the period in which
Mr. Vanamee himself has borne so honorable and conspicuous a part
contains no description of his own brilliant career as an advocate. But
though it is thus unavoidable that his signal talents and accomplishments
should not be specifically portrayed in these pages, still the intelligent
reader will not fail to perceive in these graphic estimates of his contem-
poraries an unconscious reflection of his own commanding character,
lofty ideals and acknowledged abilities.